Dec 14, 2022
Love Today — A Fresh Contemporary Light-hearted RomCom
Trust your partner to move on in life with you
Love today is a light-hearted romantic comedy that surprisingly tackles some serious relationship and social issues adeptly. It begins as a cute love story but soon becomes much more complicated and rewarding. The movie dwells on many contemporary issues and challenges in life and relationships due to social media and hence elevates itself from remaining yet another run-of-the-mill love story about two star-crossed lovers.
None of the actors were familiar to me except Sathyaraj (Katappa from Baahubali) and Yogi Babu (one of the best comedians in Tamil language Indian films). Sathyaraj is the heroine’s father who brings the main twist in the movie that shifts the movie into higher gear. His sitar-playing scenes and interrogation scenes are interesting.
I recognized Yogi Babu for his hilarious performance in Doctor (2021). But after watching him getting wasted in Beast (2022), I was hoping they don’t reduce him to doing yet another set of routine comedy sketches in the movie. On the contrary, he has a very interesting story arc in this movie. The build-up in his arc runs in parallel to the main storyline and is thematically connected to it. While it adds to the humor in the movie, I was concerned whether the payoff at the end might be worth the build-up. But I wasn’t disappointed.
The rest of the cast is good too, especially the lead pair — Nikhita and Pradeep, played by Ivana and Pradeep. Pradeep gets more screen time and delivers his best performance in comedy scenes. The rest of the movie too is quite engaging, especially how the crisis in the relationship of the young couple only deepens. The climax is highly rewarding that provides a good resolution.
If you notice closely, the story isn’t anything new. But it is the setting of the story in today’s times with the heavy influence of smartphones, the internet, and social media in our lives that even simple situations can and have become complicated. People in their late teens and twenties experiment with what life has to offer. They learn from their mistakes and try to move ahead in life. But due to smartphones and social media, a lot of that happens online and hence remains stored somewhere and can be accessed with the right credentials. If you get access to the dirty ugly side of your partner’s past, would you take it? Would you be afraid whether that might change your impression from love to despise? Or are you looking for a reason to gain access to their past, and perhaps their present?
What the movie shows is that despite the changes in technology and lifestyle, our core values and emotions remain the same. Love is love, trust is trust, and suspicion is suspicion whether it is in the 21st century or the 1st century. While you need to know about the past of the person you are going to marry, you must trust that person enough to keep all that in the past. Sometimes that person has moved on but you may obsess over the past so much that the person may be thrown back into it rather than move ahead in life with you. Avoid this self-fulfilling prophecy.
For a good weekend fun watch with some much-needed insights and realizations, you can check out Love Today on Netflix. A must-watch for young adults (late teens to late 30s).
