Are Love Stories Back In Bollywood?

Ever since the world opened up its doors to some semblance of a normal life post the pandemic, the world of movies has been all about big-ticket action movies where machismo has been on overload and bullets and bombs do more talking than sometimes, even words.

What started with the likes of KGF 2 and Sooryavanshi has led to every big actor and filmmaker trying to whip up the same kind of premise with a few new punches (literally) added for effect. Not every such film has worked, yes, but a lot of them have, prompting more such movies to be made and released. Animal isn't the only one, nor is Pushpa 2: The Rule. Even Shah Rukh Khan who has made his career predominantly with romantic dramas has picked up the action baton. There's been Pathaan and Jawan already, and his next, supposedly titled King, is also going to be an actioner.

For a while it truly felt like the Hindi film industry (and other film industries in India too) were only going to make action movies and everything else would get relegated to OTT platforms, that is if anything else was even going to get made. But then came a musical love story featuring two newcomers, literally out of nowhere, and defying everyone's expectations, took the box-office by storm.

Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda in SaiyaaraIMDB

Mohit Suri's Saiyaara had nothing going right for it, on paper. It's got no action, no big stars and it's neither a sequel or part of a franchise or universe (the other trends rampant in the movie business right now). And yet, it's captured the imagination of the audiences unlike any other movie in recent times, and the last time we checked, it had already become the year's second most profitable film. Not to mention the most successful film ever starring two debutants!

At a time when it was believed that audiences won't go to the theatre to watch a movie if it doesn't have full-blown action sequences and a lead actor who's sporting dishevelled hair and beard with a cigarette on his lips, here's a movie that's simply showing two young people falling in love and figuring out the complications that come along. Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda have done what most other, more established actors haven't been able to do - drive audiences to the theatres in large numbers.

Is it because Ahaan and Aneet are playing age-appropriate parts? That Ahaan isn't projecting toxic masculinity or romancing a woman two decades (or more) younger than him? Or is it that both young actors are truly just that good? Your guess is as good as ours, even though each of these reasons are being cited by cinephiles everywhere. But the one major reason that no one can ignore is the action movie fatigue that had started to set in for the audiences. Not every big action bonanza worked at the box-office and that should've been the first sign that change was needed.

Has that change happened? Well... no one knows yet. But what we do know is that a bunch of love stories are coming out in the next few months.

Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor in Param SundariIMDB

There was Metro... In Dino that released a few weeks before Saiyaara. Dhadak 2 comes up next, and though it's not a typical love story, it's still centred around a young couple's fight for their love for each other. There's also Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor's Param Sundari releasing later in August, and it's first song featuring Sonu Nigam's vocals has already become extremely popular. Varun Dhawan reunites with Janhvi for Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari in October. And somewhere amidst is the Kartik Aaryan- Anurag Basu movie too. Not to forget, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ambitious Love & War, featuring Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal. And these are just the movies that have been announced.

Yes, there have been a few romantic duds earlier this year, but there's no denying that Saiyaara has opened the floodgates for the one conversation no one was keen on having - where are the good Bollywood love stories? Here's one and people can't get enough of it.

Will this signal the comeback of love stories in Hindi cinema? One truly hopes. We've had enough of men smoking, abusing and fighting. It's time for them to fall in love, again.