All love stories are cliched. Boy and girl meet. Boy is attracted at first sight, girl takes her time, but boy needs more time and ultimately they patch up or otherwise they don’t! And yet love stories are most read, and most often every movie has a love angle to it, if it isn’t a love story itself. ‘I Hate Luv Storys’ is a film that uses every cliché from hind films as an important plot point, and tells yet another love story.

What’s It About: Jai, likes to call himself ‘J’, doesn’t believe in love, works as an assistant director with the country’s top love story director Veer and yet dislikes love stories. Simran on the other hand loves love stories and has ‘a Raj’ in her life, a good family and a job of an art director for her type of film – love stories! She thinks that her life is perfect and resembles a love story on its own. And when these two characters meet it is argument at first sight for both! But when Veer ensures that Jai works with Simran they end up becoming friends though Jai thinks that Simran has a problem with her head! Simran on the other hand falls for him! How Jai reciprocates to her forms the rest of the story!

What is Good: Casting is ‘I Hate Luv Storys’ highlight. Imran Khan as Jai, Sonam Kapoor as Simran, and Sameer Soni as clichéd director Veer give the film their best shot and succeed to keep its energy. Even smaller roles get some good faces like a Bruna Abdullah, Ketki Dave, Anju Mahendroo etc.

Imran Khan and Sonam Kapoor’s chemistry has all the energy and fun required for this kind of a film. Sameer Soni for the first comes as a revelation. The best part of the movie is that it is a parody on love stories, how they become clichéd every time and still keep working most often! The story takes the usual run of the mill graphs, but what works for it is its presentation.

There is the talk of candy floss, overdose of pink, larger than life sets, foreign locales in hind movies and yet the debutante director uses the all these very cleverly! As soon as the film gets into any dramatic mode, there is some sort of comedy creeping from one corner or the other. It keeps audience wanting more fun.

What is bad: This could be one of those rare movies where there is hardly anything bad, because the script itself is shaped in such a way that it takes a dig at itself for falling back on the clichés. What fault can one find with someone who knows what mistakes he is making! But to really find fault with it we could say that there is hardly one single emotional moment in the love story. Few parts felt dragged because after all we know from the start what the ending would be!

Technical Departments: Screenplay is cleverly done and it allows production designers and art designers a ‘funvee’ to showcase their talents. Music from Vishal Sekhar is pretty hummable. Editing and cinematography don’t allow a line to complain! But it is the director who easily takes the cake because of his ability to control where the film goes and keeps it on the track most of the time.

Final Point: Just a look at the audience while they are busy engrossed watching the film is enough evidence that this film is somehow reaching them. Most audiences lose themselves watching a colorful screen, easy music, great costumes in a cinematic world where no one is really bad. That is the sole purpose of making this film and it succeeds! It isn’t a great musical or a heart wrenching love story. It is a time pass movie to be watched with a date or a family easily! Watch it for two hours of colorful indulgence!