Galani Entertainments Ltd.’s Loveshhuda (UA) is a love story. Gaurav (Girish Kumar) is in London where he is to marry Vandana (Showbhagya ‘Puja’ Panchkoty), a girl selected by his sister, Garima Trehan (Tisca Chopra). On the bachelor’s night, Gaurav gets so sozzled that he ends up in bed with a stranger girl, Pooja (Navneet Kaur Dhillon). The two wake up the next morning and before Gaurav can recollect what had happened the previous night and how it all ended the way it did, it’s time for Pooja to leave his room.
Gaurav meets Pooja again during the day as he has to get back his shirt from her, the shirt sent by his fiancée’s mother for the engagement ceremony in the evening. Pooja had left his room, wearing the same shirt. She returns the shirt and when he requests her, she recounts the events that had transpired the previous night. She also tells him all the horrible things he had spoken about his fiancée in his drunken state, making him realise that he actually hates his fiancée. She prompts him to rethink his marriage plans and to do what his heart tells him but Gaurav has no courage to go against the wishes of his sister.
Gaurav gets married to Vandana and, quite predictably, the marriage ends in a divorce after four years, due to incompatibility. Gaurav is sad, depressed and dejected. His friends, Kunal (Naveen Kasturia) and Ashish (Savant Singh Premi), prevail upon him to take a vacation and so, the trio jets off to Singapore. There, Gaurav happens to meet Pooja again, and old sparks reignite. Pooja is due to get married to Vinayak (Yashodhan Pandit), an architect of repute, in just a few days but even she realises that she loves Gaurav. However, like Gaurav four years ago, Pooja, too, does not have the courage to call off her marriage, especially because she had taken so long to give her consent to a very persuasive Vinayak and also because her entire family approved of, admired and adored her choice. Gaurav tries to prevail upon Pooja to reconsider her marriage plan because they loved each other. But Pooja is adamant.
Gaurav reaches Pooja’s house where she and Vinayak are getting engaged although he is uninvited. What happens thereafter? Does Pooja marry Gaurav or Vinayak?
Vaibhav Misra has written a story which does not have much of a soul. His screenplay, and the additional screenplay by Pankaj Mattu, lack conviction, especially in the part relating to Pooja and Vinayak as a couple as against Pooja and Gaurav as a couple. Gaurav revolting against his sister, Garima, looks a bit too much if only because the audience has, till then, hardly got the feeling that she is an overbearing elder sister. Gaurav reading too much into the fact that Pooja and Vinayak’s wedding card is designed by Garima (who is a leading wedding card designer) looks like a contrived link. The writer is not clear whether he wants to use the wedding card angle to make him feel that it is a divine sign for him to pursue Pooja or merely to know her address. If Pooja seems confused about whether she should marry Vinayak or Gaurav, it still doesn’t really win her the audience’s sympathy because Vinayak is a really nice match for her.
Probably, the worst part of the screenplay is that Gaurav, Pooja and their friends are shown consuming so much alcohol that it would appear that that’s the only form of entertainment and enjoyment. They drink at the bachelor’s night, at the bachelorette party, on long drives, on the streets, wherever, whenever. So much drinking and drunkenness get on the audience’s nerves, making the lead players look like alcoholics in urgent need of rehabilitation. This constant guzzling of alcohol is bound to put off the orthodox audience and there can be no doubt about that. Also, the film gets repetitive and boring, especially in the first half which is mostly devoted to recounting what happened on a single night. Dialogues, written by Abbas Dalal, with additional dialogues by Hussain Dalal, are fairly good.
Girish Kumar does an average job but he is unable to have the audience eating out of his palm, which was the need of the character. Navneet Kaur Dhillon looks pretty and acts very confidently in her debut role. The girl has a promising career ahead of her. Tisca Chopra is dignified and leaves a mark as Garima Trehan. Sachin Khedekar is natural in a brief role as Pooja’s father. Naveen Kasturia is endearing and natural in the role of Kunal. As Ashish, Savant Singh Premi is alright. Showbhagya (Puja) Panchkoty shows off her acting prowess as Vandana. Yashodhan Pandit makes his presence felt as Vinayak. Benaf D (as Gauri), Sachin Parikh (as Garima’s husband, Sameer), Kiran Thapar (as Geeta Kapoor), Deviyani Sharma (as Neha), Meenakshi Sethi (as Pooja’s mother), Farida Dadi (as Pooja’s grandmother), Zaq Qureshi (as Gaurav’s friend, Rana) and Shahnawaz Pradhan (as Pooja’s maternal uncle) lend the necessary support. Among the other supporting actors, Brian Carter shines as the beggar in London.
Vaibhav Misra’s direction is nice. In his maiden attempt, it appears that he is a better director than a writer. Music (by Parichay; one song composed by Mithoon and remixed by Parichay) is appealing. ‘Aaj phir peene ki tamanna hai’, ‘Donon ke donon’ and ‘Total talli’ are fairly well-tuned songs. Lyrics (by Kumaar, Manoj Yadav, Parichay, Yuvraj Goel (The Gunsmith) and Saeed Quadri) are ordinary. Choreography (by Bosco-Caesar) and Kushal Digankar) could have been better. John Stewart Eduri’s background music is quite good. Bijitesh De’s camerawork is nice. Shree Kumar Nair’s production designing is of a reasonable standard. Editing (by Utsav Bhagat) is okay.
On the whole, Loveshhuda is a love story without a soul. It will, therefore, fail to touch the audience’s hearts.