Aap Jaisa Koi

Cute girl, nerdy boy — could be a romcom. A Sanskrit teacher meets one who teaches French. He is a virgin at 42, she is 32 and not squeamish about her sex life. Certainly not a cute meet, but unusual enough to pique our interest. On paper, the plot makes for some fireworks. After all, what can be more fascinating than Jean-Paul Sartre and Kalidas coming together! As the love story of Shrirenu Tripathi (R Madhavan) and Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Sheikh) unfolds, the uncommon premise holds out, but not with magic in entirety. The heart of the film is in the right place. It opens with a tribute to KJo’s iconic ‘dosti pyaar hai’, a nudge to the fact that the film is produced by Dharma Productions’ digital arm Dharmatics Entertainment. Like many of its films in the recent past, it wears its progressive values on its sleeve. Patriarchy is on play in the Tripathi household where elder brother Bhanu (Manish Chaudhary) is every inch a male chauvinist, demanding complete subservience from his culinary-adept wife Kusum (Ayesha Raza) and daughter, whom he constantly beseeches to learn household chores. One scene with reference to ‘silbatte wali chatni’ is a direct nod to the much-acclaimed ‘Mrs’.

Success improves most things except Hindi cinema. Past proves that acceptance of a certain kind of film often spawns inferior versions of the same. Many are guilty, but perhaps none more than Dharma, the production company that has made a business model out of a single premise: youth sparring with age. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), filmmaker Karan Johar, also the co-owner of Dharma, played with traditional trappings as a young man resisted parental pressure without standing up against it. Success followed, and so did similar iterations; in 2023, he fortified the defiance of young love in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) and two years later, his banner has bankrolled Aap Jaisa Koi, a shell of a film that is all framing. The point of contention remains the same: tradition holds the sword to love. But Vivek Soni’s film is also generously influenced by Rocky Rani, and as a result, the discord comprises as much old order stacked against new as the new carrying the vestige of the old. And, yet again, women and the Bengali community (I will circle back to this) shoulder the responsibility for the moral rehabilitation of the men.

Aap Jaisa Koi is what happens when Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017), Vicky Donor (2012), 2 States (2014) and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) have an awkward college reunion at a restaurant only for everyone to leave without paying the bill. The rest of the gang — Dream Girl (2019), Meenakshi Sundareshwar (2021) and Mrs. (2025) — arrive very late, so the restaurant manager detains them instead. Aap Jaisa Koi is also what happens when playful Bollywood fare is strained through the streaming algorithm. There’s a functionality about the film that flattens the big-screen fluidity of romance, (in)compatibility, warring families and dramatic sermons. Beyond the performative premise of a small-minded man courting a free-thinking woman, the cross-cultural romcom fails to retain the wit, narrative scale and acting sparkle that mark this genre.

He is 42, a virgin and desperately in need of female company. R Madhavan’s Shrirenu Tripathi is unlike a Bollywood hero, especially at a time when leading heroes flex their muscles and wield machetes in heavy-duty actioners. Filmmaker Vivek Soni’s Aap Jaisa Koi, stands apart from regular Bollywood films on many accounts. At its core is a man who is unsure of himself, and thus shy to make friends with the opposite gender. The film has shy and conservative men pitted against liberal, free-thinking modern women. The premise holds promise, but does Aap Jaisa Koi deliver? Let’s find out.

Every stereotype involving Bengalis that you have ever heard, seen and read is heaped in and then hammered into Aap Jaisa Koi. A potentially sweet film with a premise that invariably should have left a lingering aftertaste is sacrificed at the altar of poor research and poorer storytelling. What emerges is a hackneyed, almost hastily put together film that wants to be everything — entertaining, message-y, inspirational, thought-provoking — but ends up being nothing. Except for a “kick in your b***s, bro” (that is not me being obscene, but a recurring dialogue in this film). Aap Jaisa Koi, streaming on Netflix, hinges on the idea of a 42-year-old virgin — this one beats Hollywood’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin by 730 days — meeting a woman far beyond his dreams (and reach). The 10-year age gap between Shrirenu Tripathi (R. Madhavan, who, in reality, is 55) and Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh, 32 in the film, 33 in life) doesn’t seem to matter to the two of them. Despite being from different backgrounds, their beats — and not just of the piano that she plays or the sitar that he strums — click in an instant. She is a feisty Bengali woman who teaches French and lives in a joint family in North Calcutta. He still shares a modest apartment with his recently single friend (Namit Das rescues what, on paper, must have been a very annoying character) and teaches Sanskrit in a school in Jamshedpur. Shri’s only family comprises his boorish older brother (Manish Chaudhury, forever stereotyped) and neglected sister-in-law (Ayesha Raza Mishra, who helps lift the mediocre film).

He is 42. Single. Still a virgin. He is Shrirenu Tripathi (R Madhavan), he teaches Sanskrit in Jamshedpur. Even his students tease him about virginal bachelorhood. She is Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh), she teaches French in Kolkata. She’s dumped Namit (Karan Wahi), her ex, after he checked out if she’s a virgin. Shrirenu chats on Aap Jaisa Koi, an app for cosy, sexual conversations between strangers. The voice on the other end of the app tells him he’s a cross between Gulzar and George Clooney. He goes all moony-eyed. With a forgettable song in the background. Until Srirenu meets Madhu. The sparks are perfect. They like the same sort of tea with milk and elaichi. She even preferred Ashok Kumar to Kishore Kumar. Oldies are just fine for her. He is old-fashioned, still believes in flowers pressed into books. And he talks to a mouse in a trap.

Ashok Kumar…hot? His tone smacks of surprise but there’s a glint of hope in it. Perhaps the sweet, sober fella too stands a chance with a lady who finds Dadamoni hot. His confidence grows as they test if their cute girl-meets-nerdy boy can be turned into a recipe for a rom-com whilst giving into the magic of the movies inside a cozy Kolkata theatre playing Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi. Director Vivek Soni’s charmingly crafted Aap Jaisa Koi wears its old-fashioned heart on its sleeve but is also quick to dismiss outdated relationship ideals thriving in the shadow of patriarchy. Even though Aap Jaisa Koi begins with a song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (and not the Qurbani banger of the same name), it draws inspiration from Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani for its social commentary wrapped in a romcom.