As a ’90s kid, I’ve watched a fair number of romcoms. I tried watching them again recently but couldn’t relate to most of these films that I had watched quite a few times in the past. My generation grew up watching a sanitised, candy-floss version of love on the screen, with the only respite being Imtiaz Ali’s complex stories of human connections.
At a time when most romcoms are going straight to OTTs, Middle Class Love has been released in the theatres. I’m told that some romantic films/series have received a lot of love, going by the renewals they have received for new seasons. It seems viewers have not really got tired of romcoms; they just want something more relatable and realistic. The reason why I’m taking a bit longer to come to the point of this film called Middle Class Love is because of the two words in its title — ‘class’ and ‘love’.
The Indian middle class has seen a drastic socioeconomic change since the 2000s. While love still remains a simple yet strong emotion, class still continues to plague society. I have seen many relationships among friends and relatives broken (or didn’t begin) not because of lack of love but a disparity between the classes. Making a mainstream feature film in this zone will always be tricky since real-life solutions are not as easy as shown in the dreamy land of movies.
Director Ratnaa Sinha’s Middle Class Love has Yudi Sharma (played by Prit Kamani), the younger son in a typical Sharmaji ki middle-class family. Yudi wants to break the class cocoon and climb up. He doesn’t want to study at the local Kishanchand College and wants to go to the posh Oakwood High instead. However, Yudi’s idea of achieving his goal seems foolish. He thinks he will be famous and the coolest dude in his small town if he becomes Sysha Oberoi’s (Kavya Thapar) boyfriend. Sysha is the ‘it’ girl of the small town — she is a rich brat who happens to be an Instagram sensation.
Yudi manages to get into Oakwood High. I couldn’t digest how he did it. But let’s move on. At the new college/university, there’s another girl, Ashna Tripathi (played by Eisha Singh), who apparently is at loggerheads with Sysha. There’s a backstory to why that is the case. There are pranks and bets and realisations and songs and everything else mentioned on a college romcom movie checklist.
I may not be among the target audience of this film. Maybe college kids whom I witnessed giggling to the PJs in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and girls gushing over Kartik Aaryan might enjoy this film too. The guy, Prit Kamani (from the delightful Maska on Netflix), is likeable and a confident performer. He channels his inner Shahid Kapoor in Middle Class Love. Kamani incidentally played Shahid’s young adult son in Jersey. The actor has charm and is good with dialogue delivery. He is also a fine dancer.
The two female leads, however, struggle to remain consistent in their performances. Their characters are not as detailed as the guy’s. A sloppy screenplay of their scenes together doesn’t help either. The ever-so-reliable Manoj Pahwa plays the classic Sharmaji with ease. To be fair, there are some good bits and good old middle-classness about this film. They bring a smile or chuckle. But the film struggles to hold attention, especially when it cuts to songs. The Hypnotise song is groovy but others are just about passable.
Middle Class Love is shot in Uttarakhand when it is fairly covered in snow. It creates a cosy vibe necessary for such films. The production design is good, so is the cinematography. There are some cheesy one-liners. However, the Sachin Tendulkar analogy during the opening part of the film seems odd if you’re a cricket geek. Yudi tells his friend something to this effect: Sachin wouldn’t have become The Sachin Tendulkar if he had kept playing gully cricket. He became The Sachin when he played at The Lord’s in London. If your cricket memory serves you right, you’ll know that Sachin never scored a hundred at The Lord’s. That’s what pretty much happens when Yudi goes to Oakwood High. The culmination of analogy isn’t mentioned in the film, of course. I wonder whether the analogy was used keeping Tendulkar’s record at The Lord’s or not.
The film has a moving speech in the climax that has a lot of heart and character. I liked how Yudi owns up to his mistakes. There are some beautiful moments between Yudi and Ashna. And I quite liked how the triangle between Yudi, Sysha and Ashna turns out.
Middle Class Love isn’t necessarily a bad film. But there’s nothing great to enjoy either. Just like the film’s lead character, it is stuck in a place where it is difficult to come out.
Postscript: I heard Himesh Reshammiya’s voice after a long time in a movie song. The few members at this preview screening collectively went, “Himesh?” That took me back to the decade from 2000 to 2010. That’s where this film is stuck with its dated narrative style.
