In Saiyaara's final act, Mohit Suri channels the best of Aditya Chopra's brand of romance

Indian Express

7 days ago

There are few things as heartbreakingly cathartic as the final act of an Aditya Chopra romance. There are few things as tangled, as strange, as arresting as the choices his characters make when everything is on the line, when love begins to unmake and remake them. They stumble, they leap, with a kind of reckless clarity that defies sense but feels like destiny. And few things land with the the same ache, the same weight as watching them arrive at their improbable happy ending. It is the kind of feeling cinema was born to hold. It's a kind of a moment that slips past the screen and settles somewhere deeper. It's a kind of a memory that we keep on reliving. It's a kind of hope that calls us back into the dark, to believe, even for a breath, that we are not too far behind.
Watching the final act of Saiyaara, Mohit Suri's new romantic musical, unfold in a packed night show, it was the closest I've come to a Chopra romance in years. The lights dimmed, the screen bloomed, and suddenly, there they were: Krish (Ahaan Panday) and Vaani (Aneet Padda), making choices so baffling, so boldly sincere, they could've walked straight out of Chopra's world. For a good twenty, thirty minutes, the theatre held its breath, even if the audience didn't. Around me, phones came out. Around me, there were sobs and sighs. As if everyone knew: this was the closest the film would ever get to us. And maybe, just maybe, this was the only way we knew how to hold it. Perhaps they weren't capturing the moment but shielding themselves from it. Perhaps they weren't made to forget what we try so hard not to remember: that beneath everything, we are all hopeless romantics.
That's not to claim Saiyaara is flawless. Nor even to suggest it is the most heartbreakingly romantic experience I've encountered this year. Nor would it be fair to argue that it works in its entirety. Because, quite simply, it doesn't. A considerable portion leading up to the final act unfolds in a manner all too familiar, undoubtedly Suri in rhythm and sentiment. The narrative beats become traceable, the characters' trajectories almost preordained. Not that novelty alone ensures brilliance, but neither can one move through the motions of genre with such mechanical predictability and expect genuine emotional resonance. The film finds its footing only when Suri begins to abandon the comfort of his own past; when he loosens his grip on the stylistic habits that have long defined him and instead leans into the spirit of his producer, Adtiya Chopra, whose understanding of this genre is nothing short of masterful. In that sense, it feels fitting that the post-interval stretch begins to trade 'sad-boy, vulnerable girl' energy of the first half, for something more exuberant, more braver, something unabashedly in line with the Chopra legacy.
To begin with, what Mohit Suri does post-interval is quietly radical. As his Krish transforms, not into the brooding, hard-edged archetype that this genre often demands, and which Suri himself has frequently endorsed, but into something far more tender. A soft boy, if you will, but not in the reductive, ironic sense. We see a version of Krish that is gentle, patient, and emotionally articulate, willing to side-line his career, to go to lengths most would call foolish, all for the sake of being near the woman he loves, Vani. This isn't the kind of masculinity built on domination, jealousy, or performative angst. It's a masculinity rooted in care, sensitivity, and the strength of winning people over through empathy. And this, of course, is the kind of emotional intelligence that Aditya Chopra has championed since the days of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. His men have never needed to shout to be heard, or fight to be worthy. They've needed only to feel, fully, unabashedly, and without shame.
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It's not that Saiyaara is arguing that one must abandon ambition for love. That would be far too simple. Rather, it's suggesting that a man who loves should at least be willing to reorder his priorities; to acknowledge that love, in its truest form, is not about sacrifice, but about presence. And this kind of emotional clarity, this kind of compassion, has been tragically absent from our mainstream romantic leads for far too long. So it's only fitting, then, that Aditya Chopra, the very man who once redefined what love could look like on the Hindi screen, is once again behind this resurrection. The Chopra connection doesn't stop there. The central conflict in much of his work, the delicate interplay between fate and free will, is what gives Suri both the scaffolding and the spark. Just as the lovers say in Mohabbatein push back against the destinies handed to them, only to be pulled back into alignment by forces larger than themselves, Suri's characters too seem to dance with the invisible. They rebel against their circumstances, make choices that feel doomed or impossible, but it's destiny that reels them back in.
Of course, the tale of star-crossed lovers is as old as the genre itself. And yes, one could argue that Chopra isn't the only filmmaker to tread this path. But it matters that no one does it quite the way he does. Rooted deeply in the conventions of melodrama, his characters are in a moral and spiritual storm, a kind of moral occult. In the final acts of his stories, they often make decisions that, on paper, should undo any chance of a union. But on screen, through conviction alone, those choices lead them towards love. That's precisely what unfolds in the final moments of Saaiyaara. On another day, in another Mohit Suri film, this might have veered into Aashiqui-like despair. But here, happily ever after is not handed down, it's fought for. It exists because the characters choose to believe in it, to push through the inertia of fate and meet it halfway. And fate, true to Chopra's world, rewards those who love with that kind of defiant purity.
So, it's only fitting that somewhere, maybe even subconsciously, Saiyaara started to resemble, for me, the best of Aditya Chopra. Not DDLJ, not Mohabbatein, but Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Because just look at Krish in the final act: he goes all out to find Vani, and in doing so, becomes a rockstar. It's easy at first glance to read this as a classic Imtiaz Ali protagonist arc. But look closer. Think back to what Chopra does in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Suri (Shah Rukh Khan) goes all out, as well, to be seen by Taani (Anushka Sharma). And just like that, in both films, it's the characters' art that becomes the medium of connection. As love isn't handed to them; it's earned through expression. After all, it's not grand gestures for spectacle's sake, it's about reaching someone's heart in the only language that feels honest to them. Perhaps that's why the moment I can't seem to move past is destiny revealing itself, as Krish runs desperately toward a giant screen lit up with Vani's face, before collapsing to his knees. If this isn't Chopra signalling his comeback, then nothing else would do.