The best thing about Ishq Vishk Rebound is that it ends. At some point. Clunky at its best, confused at its ‘worse’ and pretty much unwatchable at its worst, this Gen-Z upgrade of the early 2000s rom-com Ishq Vishk that propelled Shahid Kapoor from Aishwarya Rai’s background dancer in Taal to the leading man slot and has kept him there since, is a mish-mash of everything that Bollywood feels will stick with the new generation. So we have situationship, love triangle, “but she’s your best friend, yaar” moments and sentences that invariably begin and end with “bro”. At one point, one bro tells another bro: “Bro, what a mess, yaar.” That is the only part of this film that finds some resonance.
Ishq Vishk Rebound relies a little too much on the natural charm and easy-on-the-eye screen presence of its leading man Rohit Saraf. But there is only that much that the young actor — earnest but completely out of depth in a sketchily-written role — can do.
The film unfolds with Rohit’s Raghav struggling to pen his first story as a Bollywood screenwriter. Kusha Kapila, who plays Kusha Kapila in every screen outing, is his boss whose recruitment skills are questionable given that she has given Raghav a writing gig for a “big film” after watching him write a play in college. Once he manages to come up with a draft based on his own love life — more on that in a bit — their conversation plays out somewhat like this. Raghav: “Film wide shot se open hoga... like The Godfather.” Producer boss: “Tu uss character ka closure post-credits mein daal de... Marvel ki tarah.” This is, of course, a serious exchange of ideas and not an inside joke or a meta reference. And that is not even the worst thing about Ishq Vishk Rebound.
That ‘honour’ belongs to debutant Pashmina Roshan. Wearing a sullen expression throughout the film, Hrithik Roshan’s cousin has an emotional range that ranks lower than the crocodile that gobbled up half of Rekha’s face in Khoon Bhari Maang. Sharmin Segal can breathe easy now.
Directed by Nipun Avinash Dharmadhikari, the film starts off with Raghav functioning as both good pal and kabab mein haddi to Sahir (debutant Jibraan Khan) and Sanya (Pashmina), who are in a relationship. Sahir and Sanya are a mercurial couple with Raghav, functioning as the film’s narrator, being made to spout lines like: “Patching up unki love language thi”. The fact that he often breaks the fourth wall to do so — at one point, he talks to the camera for a good minute as a girl puckers up to kiss him and is made to freeze halfway — makes it even more ridiculous.
Sahir and Sanya break up. Raghav breaks up with his activist girlfriend (Naila Grewal) who stages protests about environment conservation holding a steel thali with the word ‘Protest’ written on it. Raghav and Sanya find themselves getting into a relationship. Sahir shows up again, so does activist girlfriend. But for all the triangles and squares and rectangles that Ishq Vishk Rebound has in its ‘plot’, there is zero chemistry between any of its players. In fact, they show far more energy in the millions of Instagram Reels doing the rounds in which they dance to the title track.
At 106 minutes, Ishq Vishk Rebound is shorter than many Bollywood films but I came out feeling that I had been there long enough for my nails to have grown a few inches.
This is also a film that believes in deep, but ultimately hollow, exposition. When someone’s heart is broken, a TV screen in the background has the words: ‘We are all hurting and healing in silence’. In a case of rich people problems, Sanya’s moment of catharsis arrives when she hurls her golf clubs — a sport that her father forces her to play — into the water. When nothing else works, Raghav is parachuted into a scene to give gyaan. At one point he says, “Jaise Chris Martin ne kaha hain: ‘Let’s go back to the start’. Coldplay will need some recovering from that one.
