The Other Side of Love

My love doesn’t depend on your approval, he says. This is not love, it is obsession, she responds. He threatens to burn himself if she won’t have him. She won’t have him. He declares he loves her to madness, she remains cold.

He loves her, she loves him not. He shouts her name with periodic intensity. She slithers on stage in various stages of undress. We are meant to feel sorry for the poor little rich boy, Vikramaditya (Harshvardhan Rane), who has never been taught to accept failure, and gets upset that Adaah (a reconstructed Sonam Bajwa) doesn’t reciprocate his intensity. Hmm, where have we seen this trope before?

Yes, in 20th-century Bollywood, and Milap Zaveri, the writer and director, insists on serving it to 21st-century audiences, with better production values. The more he persists, the more she resents him, until she declares that she will spend a night with anyone who kills him. Unfortunately, that is not the end of the movie. The longsuffering audience has to suffer more. Ho-hum.