1. A real depiction of stages of love.
Unlike most Bollywood romcoms, this movie takes it time to build up a romance between Jai and Aditi. No, they do not fall head over heels in love with each other the second they meet but go through various stages like denial, confusion, and rebounds like most millennials do.
2. The flawed female lead
The movie broke many stereotypes. One of them is how the female lead has to be perfectly feminine and softer than her partner. Aditi is not perfect. She makes wrong impulsive decisions, has insecurities and anger issues which make her much more relatable especially for young adults living the college life.
3. The sibling relationship
The movie does not only focuses on the love story but also gives story arcs to other supporting characters. Amit and Aditi show us how must of us drift apart from our childhood partners in crime, our siblings as we grow up and find new people. It also shows no matter how many friends you make, siblings are always a blessing because they will help you find yourself and give you comfort when you least expect it.
4. Aditi's parents
Aditi's parents are groundbreakingly cool. They make efforts to understand the complexities of their children and support them in all their decisions. They welcome Jai without any prejudices of class differences and also embrace Aditi when she makes the decision to drop everything and go abroad to pursue her dream career.
5. The independent single mother
Savitri, Jai's mom shines in the movie with her portrayal of a strong-headed independent single mother. This movie is a feminist in many ways. Savitri supports her son emotionally when he needs it, stands up to patriarchy whether be it against her in-laws or a chauvinistic cop and at the same time raises Jai into becoming a calm and composed man.
6. It recognizes abuse for what it is
This movie came at a time when Bollywood was busy celebrating controlling boyfriends and excused physical and verbal abuse as love but this movie unapologetically showed how Sushant abusing Aditi, his fiance was not acceptable and could not be forgiven in the name of possessiveness.
7. A. R. Rahman's magic
This movie gave us songs that still refuse to leave our minds. Every single track and even the background music was simply beautiful. But most importantly it gave us, "Kahin toh hogi wo" which is every one-sided lover's solace in difficult times and can transport you to another world whenever you listen to it.
8. Friendship
This was not just a love story but a story of friendship that constitutes a major part of our life growing up. From beginning to the end of the movie the gang sticks up together and they always had each other's back even though they were not in college anymore.
9. The unexpected relationship of Bombs and Rotlu
Rotlu and Bombs who were always gloomy because of their one-sided feelings for Aditi and Jai found each other at their rock bottom and hit it off like complete soulmates. It reminds us how some time love is hiding in places we least expect to find it. Their story is nothing less of a fairytale in its own way.
10. The photograph dad
The superficial funny fights between Savitri and her late husband Amar Singh through his photograph add a hilarious element to the story. Their scenes together are undoubtedly some of the funniest ones in the movie.
By Swadha Agrawal