Bobby Aur Rishi Ki Love Story

I’m running out of polite ways to say that most Bollywood launch vehicles are vanity vans parading as commercial movies. I’m running out of impolite ways to say that most Hindi rom-coms feature nepotism hires and Gen Z characters who speak like outdated youngsters at a debutante ball imagined by out-of-touch boomers. I’m also running out of ways to say that I’m running out of ways. Kunal Kohli’s Bobby Aur Rishi Ki Love Story looks like it was written in 1995, shot in 2005, scored in 2015, edited in 1985, colour corrected in 1975 and released in 2025. Remember the annoying animated couple from Kohli’s hit, Hum Tum (2005)? Those two were still more realistic and less cringey than the live-action couple in this film, who do the walking-and-talking-in-Europe (or post-Brexit Britain) jig as if Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Before Sunrise were in-flight tourist videos rather than classic landscape changers. They start as enemies, become frenemies and turn into screechy soulmates — all with the artistic spirit of a paid vacation and the emotional awareness of an oblivious meme.