Pehla Pyaar Doosri Baar
Romance Comedy Drama Hindi
Three friends attend their school reunion and enter into different relationships, discovering the trials, tribulations, allure, and absurdities of love.
| Cast: | Alisha Chopra, Sparsh Walia, Sakshi Vaidya, Kunal Vaid, Sargun Kaur Luthra, Tushar Chhibber, |
|---|---|
| Director: | Anuj Saini |
| Writer: | Luv Ranjan, Anuj Saini, Jehan Handa |
| Editor: | Manan Sagar |
| Camera: | Vidushi Tiwari |
All Guild Reviews of "Pehla Pyaar Doosri Baar"
This Luv Ranjan-Backed Rom-Com Struggles to Find Its Spark
Can it even be a Luv Ranjan film without a girl being the bad guy? Or will we need to wait for the teesri baar for that to happen?
Three flatmates sitting around lumpy couches, slinging slang, while looking for the love of their lives : remember the 2011 Pyaar Ka Punchnama trio, which refreshed these tropes with a distinctly desi vibe?. Cut to 2026. The threesome slumming it on the outskirts of Delhi, more gender inclusive by dropping a guy for a gal, has switched it up for a swisher look, both in terms of office-and-home decor. What hasn’t changed, even if the director of that one has a producer’s credit on this one, is the search for The One: a school reunion is used as an excuse to hook up with those who remained stubbornly out of reach. Will he, won’t she? That eternal question, as well as bad mouthing frenemies, will never get old, whichever decade it may be, so if that’s the endeavour of the youngies at the centre of this Gen Z-coded rom com, so be it: my interest lay in whether this bunch of new faces will be able to pull it off.
Pyaar Ka Punchnama Woke-Upgrade Has Its Share of Problems
Although the film is backed by competent performances, there is a certain plasticity to Pehla Pyaar Doosri Baar
Both OTT and social media discourse were years away when Pyaar Ka Punchnama came out in 2011. Before people could understand the difference between feminine and feminism, the “Every guy’s pain” monologue had gone “viral” on messaging apps. Newbie Kartik Aaryan got overnight popularity but everybody later wanted to know who that “Liquid” (played by Divyenndu) guy was. Pyaar Ka Punchnama popularised the Delhi corporate slave lingo and gave people characters they could relate their frustrations with. Everybody in the film spoke in a rant-y way, concreting people’s (read guys) desires and disdains. It was a relatable buddy comedy before we caught on its overwhelmingly misogynistic lens.
Another Proud Monument to ‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama’
The dated romcom revolves around three North Indian flatmates who set out to woo their high-school crushes at a glossy reunion
It’s tempting to blindly like any Hindi film that dares to not be a violent actioner, a superstar-driven mass entertainer, a propaganda historical, a political thriller, a biopic or a mythological drama. Romcoms are suddenly as rare and desirable as spines; love stories — even the bad ones — are novel again. But romcoms like Pehla Pyaar Doosri Baar remind you why they went extinct. The newcomers-who-are-not-ready-but-star-in-a-designer-North-Indian-comedy template is a throwback to the early 2010s, when Luv Ranjan’s Pyaar Ka Punchnama set the ball rolling and triggered a wave of genre fatigue. Ranjan co-writes and produces here, which partly explains why the movie behaves like an ex who refuses to move on.
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