If ‘Saiyaara’ hero Ahaan Panday can’t make it in music, there’s always the UFC
“Saiyaara” has a great thing going, only to keep trying to convince us otherwise. Director Mohit Suri is a music man, and “Saiyaara” is about musicians, but instead of crafting intimate musical moments like we see in a host of other films about musicians ranging from “The Doors” to “A Complete Unknown” to “The Idea of You,” he resorts to booming concert theatrics again and again, or even worse, near-concert theatrics when numerous expected performances get called off.
And then whenever we need to know crucial details, they’ll be revealed not with creative photography, but a character (or diary entry) explaining something to another, such as the title of the film.
Ahaan Panday as Krish is the debut star of “Saiyaara” with the bad-boy edge, but the protagonist is really Aneet Padda as Vaani, the young jilted beauty whose only friend somehow is her diary. That’s a red flag. Movies about writers are typically boring. Her Meet Cute with Krish is not exactly cute but one of the film’s disturbing two or three passages delving into alarming violence that would make anyone wonder, Why is this beauty dating such a violent man?
The opening scene of the pending marriage in “Saiyaara” would be worth a lengthy film session. Padda is never more beautiful in the rest of the film, a chancy move by the director. Unfortunately, very important information has to be relayed to her by phone by a character we have not yet met. But when her mother notices Vaani’s reaction and immediately knows what has happened, that is a powerful statement.
From that point, we should be watching a story of Vaani picking up the pieces and learning whether she can let herself love again. But Suri will flip the script and turn her into a passive character serving only as the benchmark for the growing-up process of Krish, who has loads of talent and fists and an ego to match.
Throughout the movie, which at times seems like a roughly 2½-hour music video, somehow, we never really see Krish performing with his “band.” Or is it even his band? The movie bogs itself down with laborious conversations about Krish’s potential stardom or lack thereof, either in the group with the fellow whose dad is arranging media coverage and is putting the son through higher eduction, or as a solo artist/composer (that much is never really clear either) who can restart legends’ careers within a few hours. One of the milestones in Krish’s path to maturity is reconnecting with the original band — but apparently only because he signed away his big chance with the legend. KV, the leader of the band, is curiously ambiguous. At times, he is the earnest, likable glue that holds it all together; at others, he is the short-sighted businessman who thinks of nothing beyond social media statistics, and social media in this film is generally regarded dubiously as an insult to real artists. Because Krish never rehearses with the band, we have no idea if they’re any good, but they say they are based on Instagram following, so there you go.
“Saiyaara” gets to its major twist a little too soon. Krish and Vaani are connecting because Krish insists on it, but Vaani is never sure she wants to be part of the music business — even though she somehow sort of enters it at the major-league level — and is equally unsure whether a future with the likes of Krish is what she wants. They have something in common in sticking it to the publishing house, but they don’t really have a lot of fun together (unless you count the empty free cricket yard with the bowling machine available with no one around whenver the characters need it). Unlike in “Pretty Woman,” where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are having an unexpectedly great time, Krish and Vaani are constantly frowning. Each seems resigned to misery. Each of these actors clicks. They just don’t click enough with each other.
Their most memorable moments together, in the form of a beach montage (an idea that’s certainly been done before), could be seen as the common occurrence of people having accepted difficult news and embracing a moment of freedom after many grim days, but this sequence does not have any of the reserve that such a moment would have, and both characters appear completely healthy and vigorous. A character also will take part in events that almost surely would require a guardian’s permission. “Saiyaara” gladly shows us people being maimed, but it has very little interest in showing the devastating daily effects of a health condition, other than when it’s needed for a love triangle, albeit one that’s cleverly written. With this health condition, “Saiyaara” will slightly — slightly — invoke the likes of “Persona,” “L’Avventura” and “Mulholland Dr.,” films about women with multiple personalities. The consequences will produce a fight between Krish and Mahesh that will look even worse than Balboa-Drago.
There’s formula here. Some of the time, it works. Mostly we have the young people being wronged/stifled by anyone over 30 (or actually anyone in a suit). An old person’s ailment is upending young lives. A young person is somehow threatened with jail over the antics of an older-relative drunkard. Vaani’s parents are portrayed as a neutral party; they are of course too skeptical of the likes of Krish, but they are not unsympathetic. A couple times it is mentioned that Vaani is an adult, even though she finds herself in situations that could use a real grownup adviser. We have a tragic situation keeping lovers apart. And we have songs with just the right lyrics when needed. The songs of “Saiyaara” are excellent but, in this kind of film, routine.
“A Woman Under the Influence” is one of the premier films about the reaction of loved ones to a person’s degenerative condition. That movie is not about young love but middle-age love. It depicts the problem in more everyday, devastating ways. “Saiyaara” makes some curious scientific judgments — a person recalling only the specific memories of another person that give the plot an almost farcical twist and actually make us wonder what the person really thinks about the significant others in their life.
There are well-chronicled significant others in pop music. Whether Suri might’ve been inspired by the romances of John Lennon/Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney/Linda Eastman is doubtful, given that Krish is not an already-established star but a troubled-but-talented type who has not yet hit the big time. Krish and Vaani are more like the Jim Morrison/Pam Courson and Bob Dylan/Joan Baez pairings, the woman who can write who gets through to the moody musician who rides a motorcycle (probably, in “The Doors,” Jim Morrison rides a motorcycle at some point).
“Saiyaara” is in Hindi but with English subtitles. However, characters often veer into English and back, sometimes halfway through a sentence. Sometimes that seems necessary for social-media-type terminology. Other times? Maybe they are making a point. Or maybe the filmmakers want to keep English-speaking audiences as connected as possible.
There’s at least a little product placement in “Saiyaara” (a Sonata watch is prominently shown). The movie opens with a curious disclaimer about how the film is completely fictional, is not making reference to any real people or entities and is not trying to offend anyone. Perhaps that’s partly because a key character is an over-the-hill musician simply known as “Prince” who is comfortable claiming authorship of other people’s work. What a drag it is gettin’ old ...
3 stars
(July 2025)
“Saiyaara” (2025)
Starring
Ahaan Panday as
Krish Kapoor ♦
Aneet Padda as
Vaani Batra ♦
Geeta Agarwal as
Mrs. Batra (Vanni’s mother) ♦
Rajesh Kumar as
Mr. Batra (Vanni’s father) ♦
Varun Badola as
Ashook Kapoor (Krish’s father) ♦
Shaad Randhawa as
Prince ♦
Sid Makkar as
Vinit Rawal ♦
Alam Khan as
KV ♦
Shaan Groverr as
Mahesh Iyer ♦
Anngad Raaj as
Rudransh Batra (Vanni’s brother Rudy) ♦
Neil Dutta as
Cleo Matthews (band member) ♦
Ritika Murthy as
Neha ♦
Mohit Wadhwa as
Rick ♦
Meher Acharia-Dar as
Dr. Khyati ♦
Raunak Kumar Rawat as
Vivaan ♦
Karan Barnabas as
Bass Player (band member) ♦
Shlok Sanjay Chiplunkar as
DJ (band member) ♦
Yajat Dhingra as
Drummer (band member) ♦
Swaroop Khopkar as
Old lady patient ♦
Meehir Kukreja as
Keyboard Player (band member) ♦
Nagesh Salwan as
Old lady patient’s husband ♦
Geeta Agrawal Sharma as
Vaani’s Mother
Directed by: Mohit Suri
Written by: Sankalp Sadanah
Written by: Rohan Shankar
Presented by/producer: Aditya Chopra
Producer: Akshaye Widhani
Associate producer: Rishabh Chopra
Creative executive producer: Sumana Ghosh
Supervising producer: Gurpreet Singh
Music: John Stewart Eduri, Faheem Abdullah, Tanishk Bagchi, Rishabh Kant, Vishal Mishra, Arslan Nizami, Mithun Sharma, Sachet Tandon, Parampara Thakur
Cinematography: Vikas Sivaraman
Editing: Rohit Makwana, Devendra Murdeshwar
Casting: Shanoo Sharma
Production design: Laxmi Keluskar, Rajat Poddar
Costumes: Sheetal Sharma
Production manager: Aishwarya Handa
Executive in charge of production: Rajesh Bhattacharya
Production executive: Tulika Sikder