Saiyaara’s success can be explained, it’s a cinematic step-up for those who loved Sanam Teri Kasam

Sanam Teri Kasam and Saiyaara (and Love Story, of course) have the same plot. It’s a tale as old as time where the love has to get challenged by an obstacle so big that it must seem insurmountable. Yet, the love must stand victorious in the end. That’s what makes one cheer for a love story, that’s what makes you cherish it. Sanam Teri Kasam, in no way, was a film that was worth remembering but in the recent past, it somehow found its moment under the sun and if there was any lesson that had to be learnt from its success, it was probably that the audience were waiting to fall in love with a romance.

Aneet Padda and Ahaan Panday in a still from Mohit Suri’s Saiyaara.

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Since mainstream Bollywood is largely ruled by middle-aged folks, there is a certain sense of judgment when they speak about the younger audience —  the demographic they are primarily catering to. Even in the most harmless movie promotions, they talk down to Gen Z folks as they reduce an entire generation’s idea of love to ‘swiping’ and ‘benching’. Not just older folks, even young(ish) female actors like to declare how ‘old school’ they are, as if they want to disassociate themselves from their own generation. Without even setting out to do so, Bollywood has somehow alienated their primary audience by constantly insulting their intelligence – emotional or otherwise. So why would they expect them to pay for films where, in the name of a love story, a 40-something man is behaving in a self-indulgent fashion with a 20-something woman, as they continue to present them as a generation that has lost the idea of love?

Saiyaara, with all its illogical plot points, where a doctor decides to tell her 22-year-old patient some life altering news when she is all by herself, and where the said person starts experiencing exaggerated symptoms of their illness from the next scene, is about the kind of love that’s so big that it feels unreal, but all of this only kicks in during the film’s second half.

From the get-go, the remarkable talent of Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda is impressive enough to pull you into their corner. And as you watch them perform in those first few scenes, you wonder why, as a paying audience, you had to sit through the likes of Nadaaniyan and Loveyapa, when it is perfectly possible for new actors to actually learn their craft before they participate in extremely expensive ‘launch’ vehicles that are somehow worse than middle-school plays. And after you are done noticing Aneet’s carefully created soft curls, and Ahaan’s intricately curated look that is supposed to make him appear nonchalant and rowdy, you explore the corners of this extremely familiar Mohit Suri universe.

Saiyaara marks the debut of Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda.

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You can’t help but wonder how an angelic woman like Vaani could ever fall in love with a narcissistic boy who chants his own name and has his own picture as his phone’s wallpaper. You also wonder how no one has called out the extremely violent nature of this protagonist who should be declared a red-flag even before the opening credits but once you have spent enough time on these curious details, the film starts taking shape, almost 90 minutes into its runtime.

And once that happens, it opens a door of fantasy that’s as unreal as it is magical. It’s like a portal to a universe where there is no pain or illness, and love is all you need to survive. Mohit Suri creates a universe where you believe that someone is ready to give up on their lifelong dream without skipping a beat, just for their love. Once he introduces this universe, you start to understand the appeal of Saiyaara. Of course, he goes back to his ways with the ex-boyfriend and the violent outburst, but he reels you back in as he gets to the final act of the film. You can’t help but cheer for someone’s love, as illogical as it might be, because he makes you believe that in this universe, nothing is bigger than love.

It is this core that makes Saiyaara aspirational and desirable. Since the film’s release, there has been a lot of conversation around how every generation has their popular mainstream love story, and how Saiyaara is ‘that film’ for this generation. But honestly, like all the popular love stories before this, and possibly all the ones that will come after this, love stories don’t belong to any generation, and that’s what makes them aspirational over ages. It’s like watching a wedding video – it could be from the ‘80s with all the awkward looks, and tacky editing effects, or it could be a Dharma-like production with drones flying over a palace – if there’s love involved, there’s no way it won’t melt your heart, and that’s what Saiyaara does in the last act with such ease that you forget everything that bothered you before that.