Review : I Hate Luv Storys (New Hindi Film / Bollywood Movie / Indian Cinema DVD)

'I Hate Luv Storys' is a story about story--the process of story, why stories matter, the truth about life found in them. It's a defense of love stories, even as it pokes fun at their corniness. But this love story is a pale, muted version of the great Bollywood love stories of old, and while it aims to romanticize, it ultimately disparages.

Jay (Imran Khan) hates love stories. He wants to be a film director and he's working as an assistant to a big-time Bollywood director, Veer (Samir Soni), who is famous for his love stories. Jay hates his job, but he needs to pay the bills and pad his resume. Since his heart's not in it, he's always screwing up and on the verge of getting fired. Jay also hates love in general--he doesn't believe in relationships and he sleeps around.

Simran (Sonam Kapoor) loves love stories. She's an art director working on the same movie as Jay. She loves her job and is quite good at it. She has a picture-perfect relationship with her lovey-dovey boyfriend, Raj (Sameer Dattani), a button-cute investment banker, although there's clearly no real physical passion or emotional intimacy between them.

Obviously, Jay and Simran do not get along. Their respective professions inform their characters and their viewpoints on love. As an art director, Simran is concerned with the appearance of love, its beauty, the enchanting surface of it. As a hopeful director, Jay objects to love and love stories because he sees them as predictable plots. Likewise, Jay criticizes Simran's relationship with Raj because it's boring--there's no challenge, no conflict, no risk--none of the things that make a good story, or for that matter, a meaningful life. Of course, they represent all of those things to each other without realizing it. They're both fixated on the outcome of love stories, with different feelings about it, instead of what it takes to get there. They're both scared of what real love demands and they're trying to avoid it in different ways. Their love story has a promising start and could have appropriately ended halfway through the movie--instead it drags tediously through the pointless second half.

The film is filled with actual clips from romantic classics, recreated scenes from romantic classics, and songs and lines from romantic classics--to the point of overkill--as if these alone could carry the film. The irony is that 'I Hate Luv Storys' was produced by Karan Johar, who has been involved as a producer, director, writer, and actor in many of those same classics. He's helped define the film conventions that make Bollywood love stories so loved. But here, those conventions are reduced to a list of clichés--a literal list that one character checks off as the film progresses. Has Johar finally internalized what his detractors have been saying all along? Or is he not a romantic at all, but rather, a jaded wizard behind the curtain? 'I Hate Luv Storys' is as disillusioning as it is dull.