'Deewaniyat' review: Harshvardhan Rane's heartbreak saga is unbearable
What's the story
A film can fail in many ways. The story and screenplay can be half-baked, the characters can be flimsy, the pace can be slow, etc. Milap Zaveri's Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat fails on all these fronts and more, becoming a crude, headache-inducing affair. Overlong, repetitive, and forgettable, the film tests your patience every second during its 140-minute runtime.
Plot
A politician's obsessive love for an actorÂ
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat (the title is a mouthful) follows a hotshot politician named Vikramaditya (Harshvardhan Rane). He has extreme anger issues, is unapologetically obsessive, and doesn't take no for an answer. He falls for Adaa (Sonam Bajwa), a superstar, and vows to marry her within days of meeting her. Adaa rejects his proposal, but can she save herself from his "love"?
#1
The film is stuck in the past
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat might have been released in 2025, but it's stuck in the 1980s. Its ideas about love and companionship are well past the expiry date, and while it tries to give Adaa a voice, the efforts seem half-hearted. It reminded me of Bhaiyya Ji, a rare miss from Manoj Bajpayee that also seemed way too old for its time.
#2
Doesn't engage you at all
Random scenes are stitched together, and the film, on the whole, seems quite unpolished. After a bad first-half, Zaveri pulls off the unthinkable and delivers an even more atrocious second half, and I particularly felt cheated by Adaa's change of heart in the climax. Zaveri believes a deafening background score can draw you to scenes, and a lot of buildup eventually leads to nothing.
#3
The film takes pride in endorsing toxic 'love'
Nothing about Vikramaditya is even remotely believable. He doesn't just walk, he walks in slow-motion, he doesn't speak, he delivers sermons. From holding Adaa's hands during their first meeting to thrashing the men who even utter her name, he is all kinds of toxic. Worse, the film seemingly endorses this toxicity in the name of love. Did we not learn anything from Arjun Reddy?
#4
Zaveri desperately tries to please 'Sanam Teri Kasam' fans
From its frames to its dialogues to its music, the film seems like a conscious attempt to appeal to the same crowd that made Sanam Teri Kasam's re-release a massive success. There are some impactful scenes, good performances by Bajwa and Rane, but little to no novelty, and I struggled immensely with this lackluster, punishing story.
Verdict
We watched it so you don't have to; 1/5 stars
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat is an incredibly labored watch, one that left me nursing a headache. Far too many movies these days tease another part (franchises are the flavor of Bollywood), and Zaveri, unsurprisingly, recently shared that he already has an idea about the sequel. But, when a film bulldozes your senses like this, who will be watching its part 2? 1/5 stars.