Love Guru, the last big entertainer one will see from Pakistan for the next year or so (provided that more big films go into production in the first place), lights up the cinema halls with a question. Can a simple romance film — one following its own commandment to close its eyes and walk past the narrative pitfalls of social commentaries, woke sensibilities, crude comedy, melodrama and theatrics — still turn out to be worth today’s audience’s time?

Well, a nearly 40 crore rupees’ box-office draw (which should be the case by the time you read this) is as good a tell-tale sign of the audience’s response. However, a big payday at the box-office does not mean that Love Guru is a flawless enterprise of uber ingenuity. Far from it.

It is a story we’ve seen time and again in a better iteration — a guru of love, a professional, charismatic, master planner who breaks relationships, falls in love while on the job. However, does that premise really define the entirety of the film? In this particular case: not at all.

Adil (Humayun Saeed, in a role crafted for his age) is employed by helpless parents of good girls who are romantically entangled with seemingly good boys, whom he paints as bad guys, so that the girls can break off their relationships and marry “the right person” that their parents want.

The Humayun Saeed and Mahira Khan-starrer Love Guru is a mixed bag of a film, but one should appreciate the return to what the new-normal was two decades ago

Within the first 10 minutes of Love Guru, one can see that Adil is a whiz of an emotional con-man… however, that will soon change. His latest assignment is to woo an unlikely candidate out of a love marriage.

She is Sofia (Mahira Khan, not playing a young lass), an enterprising architect who is set to marry the film’s (badly kept) secret second-lead. The man, when he is revealed, turns out to be perfection personified — though not in the wayone thinks. This, by the way, is the USP that every film seeks; a twist one doesn’t see coming.

Love Guru, shot almost entirely in the UK, has four big pluses and three minuses.

The first big plus are Humayun Saeed and Mahira Khan. The two actors hold the screen with magnetism and charisma befitting superstar actors, navigating their characters with a natural, undramatic flair. Saeed nails his comedy bits with just as much precision as his dramatic moments — as an actor, I do not think he is capable of hamming it up, nor badly playing it down. Khan, who has fewer comedic moments, mostly plays it straightlaced, until the two back-to-back emotional climactic showdowns that hit an emotional high point (Saeed excels in these two parts as well).

The second big plus are Ahmed Ali Butt — in a role one doesn’t expect him to be in, but a role he slides smoothly and perfectly into — and Ramsha Khan, who plays Sofia’s free-spirited, easily romantically inclined bestie.

The third is the soundtrack by Adnan Dhool, Jaam Boy, Shani Arshad, Saad Sultan, Shiraz Uppal, Roach Killa and Arif Lohar. Out of the six tracks, only one — ‘Aa Tenu’ (by Killa and Lohar) didn’t work for me, but only because of my personal preference in music. The other five tracks — especially Jaam Boy’s and Shani Arshad’s ‘Sada Ashna’ and ‘Raat ke hain saaye’, sung by Aima Baig — are excellent; the album effortlessly tops London Nahin Jaunga (LNJ), Saeed’s last big venture.

The fourth high point: Vasay Chaudhry’s seemingly innocuous, straightforward screenplay, whose secret sauce is its guileless simplicity. Chaudhry’s approach is a mix of the modern and classic, penning a screenplay that has few moving parts and dramatic high points. While one would have loved to see a different twist in the late stages of the story, for the most part, most narrative decisions surprisingly work, even when they shouldn’t, such as Adil’s teams’ shenanigans which are one of the weaker aspects of Chaudhry’s screenplay — though the screenwriter’s own cameo is a hoot.

By now one understands director Nadeem Baig’s itch to do things differently. LNJ was a decidedly different, mellow drama that was deliberately slow in its pacing, and ran with its ultimate flaws — the premise itself; Baig, self-confessed that he knew all too well what that film’s flaws were.

I am sure Baig, a master of his own style who has a tingling for daring to explore the creative side of narrative, knows the three flaws of this film as well.

The first is its second tier of the supporting cast and how their characters are written. Javed Sheikh, playing Sofia’s Pathan father who bumbles his words; Usman Peerzada, playing her would-be father-in-law; Vardah Aziz (also the film’s stylist — and doing a better job at it), comedian Mani Liaquat and Marina Khan playing Adil’s reconnaissance and tactics gang — all of these are throwaway characters written in for narrative convenience. Since they have little to do in the story, the actors have little to do on the big screen as well. Even their emotional moments, few as they are, hardly work.

The second issue is technical: although the sound, edit and cinematography are fine — not jaw-dropping excellent but just fine — the colour-grading decisions are a turn-off. The colours tilt towards a blue-green spectrum and that takes away the warmth one should feel in a romcom. They don’t pop as much — their vibrance toned down — and when they do stylishly pop, they do so to turn the emotion off.

The use of modern, sharp lenses, evident in the sterile frame of the film, is as much a culprit in this matter (for those who don’t know, the brand of lenses and the look they deliver play a huge part in conveying the right emotions).

The third is the climax, so spoiler alert: we’ve seen the runaway bride bit far too many times. It has become a liability that one should throw away in the deepest of pits where story cliches are thrown away to die.

Notice here that this reviewer does not fault Humayun Saeed and Mahira Khan for playing their ages, or turning old. If people can buy tickets to see Tom Cruise playing action hero, or 60-something Hollywood, Bollywood and Tollywood actors romancing actresses and flipping trucks, one can accommodate — perhaps even applaud — Saeed and Khan for playing characters who might be touching their late 30s or early 40s.

With Love Guru, one should appreciate the return to what the new-normal was two decades ago. This film takes you back to a simpler time, when stories weren’t seeped with overwrought, self-conscious, factory-like, algorithm-run storytelling that fears being socially incorrect, rather than deliver stress-free entertainment.

If one can’t really appreciate cinema for being a fun — but not mindless — means of escape that doesn’t rub anyone the wrong way, then Pakistani cinema should just take off its boxing gloves and retire. The fight is done.

Released by ARY Films, Love Guru is rated U, and is for everyone

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 15, 2025