By Rit Saraswat

To start out with, let me just say I’ve never been crazy about love stories. They’re annoying, predictable, and if I have to sit through one more scene where our leading lady “lets loose” and sings karaoke, I will “let loose” and shoot myself. Note, however, that I am referring to love stories in films, not in real life. But in I HATE LUV STORYS (alternate title: I HATE SPELLING) our leading man, J (Imran Khan), hates all love stories, real and filmi; and boy, does it take an exhausting couple of hours for us to watch his own “luv story” unfold.

From the first scene of the film, we are subjected to very literal voiceovers from J and Simran (Sonam Kapoor). He hates love stories, she loves them. He drinks every night, she only on weekends. He’s a serial dater, she’s dating the man of her dreams.  J and Simran both work in the film industry, and after they first meet and lock horns, circumstances force them to work in close quarters. One falls for the other, but the timing is wrong. Then the other falls for the other, but the timing is wrong again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m not kidding folks, this back-and-forth is literally the entire film.

That said, the first half has some great moments. The film opens with a tremendous, infectious energy, and manages to almost sustain itself til the midpoint. But after that, the story unfolds so tediously and slowly, that I seriously considered taking a break to renew my AAA membership. It feels like one song after another is thrown in to make up for a lack of creative scenes. Not to mention there are numerous Hindi film parodies thrown into the mix. And I mean numerous. We get it… Hindi movies can be cliched, they can be silly, but you know it’s a serious problem when you can’t tell if a scene is supposed to be mocking a film, or if it’s just a bad scene that isn’t meant to be a parody. Eventually, the film collapses into the very pile of cliches it wastes so much time mocking.

Performance-wise, Imran is charming, likable, and demonstrates a great flair for physical comedy. That’s a huge credit to him, considering his character is such a cynical hater that it’d be easy to dislike him. Sonam does her best with a poorly written, sometimes ridiculous, character. (What girl walks around with a flower everyday, and says, “I love love stories! In fact, I love everything!”) Unfortunately, she mopes her way through the second hour of the film, as demanded by a weak script. Her upcoming AISHA, the trailer for which appeared before this film, holds much more promise for her. Together, Imran and Sonam are a tad awkward, and their poorly developed relationship is largely responsible for making the second half such a hard sell. Direction by first-timer Punit Malhotra is a mixed bag; comedy is his thing, story is not. He certainly shows potential in parts of this film, and now that he has a frothy romantic comedy out of his system, it will be interesting to see what he can do with some fresher material.

Most of the music looks better on screen than it sounds in your car. The biggest mistake was not including Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s version of “Bahara” in the film, which is easily the best track off the album, and would have fit snugly into a few scenes in the film. It would have been a a much better choice than the tonally awkward “Sadka Hua.”

Dharma Productions managed to surprise us last year with WAKE UP SID, and I was hoping we’d get something similar in the way of creativity with this film. I HATE LUV STORYS is clunky, shies away from dealing with any honest emotion, and insults the audience by lacking any subtlety. Besides, you know you’re not dealing with refreshing cinema when your leading man glances down at sticker that says “Just Do It” before he goes to chase the girl that he “luvs.”