#Love Review: Watchable Yet Superficial Take On Dating Realities

BOTTOM LINE
Watchable Yet Superficial Take On Dating Realities

PLATFORM
Netflix

RUNTIME
3 Hrs 23 Mins (6 Episodes)

What Is the Show About?

Tara, an ambitious startup founder, and Matthew, a disinterested investor backing a rival product, set each other a 60-day challenge. Their ideologies clash as they date through each other’s platforms. When a genuine romance emerges, they are caught between their feelings and their corporate careers.

Performances

Arjun Das may be moving beyond negative roles, though the core traits of his characters still feel similar – grumpy, lost, introverted and nursing past trauma – which limits his range. Aishwarya Lekshmi is impressive, but you sense something is holding her back from going full throttle. Gayathri Hariharan gets the better parts among the supporting cast. Badree’s stereotypical turn as a mean corporate hustler fails to make an impression.

Analysis

Director Balaji Mohan, who debuted with Love Failure, made Vaayai Moodi Pesavum and branched out into OTT with As I’m Suffering From Kaadhal, has explored the many confusions of modern-day romance throughout his career. #Love on Netflix is his attempt to capture a new generation’s tryst with dating.

#Love is the story of two business rivals who experience a connection that never quite becomes a relationship. They get drunk, say the wrong things and never gather the courage to make it official. It is ironic that they help the world find love while failing to recognise a soulmate themselves.

Both lead characters build dating portals as a response to their fragmented families. Matthew loses his mother early and has an emotionally distant father who remarries later. Deprived of love in childhood, he struggles to break free from the walls he has built around himself.

Tara, meanwhile, is an ambitious woman whose parents are separated. She carries trust issues after a terrible heartbreak five years ago. In short, here are two successful people carrying the burden of their past and never really setting themselves free.

Matthew and Tara approach dating differently. One believes in chemistry, the other in compatibility. Over time, they realise love is a lot more than labels. The fact that they are competitors keeps messing up their equation. The moment is never right.

Apart from them, love exists in many shapes in the show. A gay man craves companionship but is yet to come out, while living with his female best friend. A married woman who doesn’t feel seen in her marriage finds a connection with a stranger. A brother fails to accept his sister dating a much older man.

#Love has a compelling core that explores myriad dating realities, though the entrepreneurial world the characters inhabit is not fleshed out well. The workplace drama is superficial. The subplots dealing with Tara’s investor woes and Matthew’s subordinates taking on competitors feel petty.

The show is plagued by a sense of artifice. Everything feels made-up, scripted and enacted. Many characters are underwritten, some needlessly convoluted. It is sincere in its attempt to be inclusive, to make its target audience feel seen. Yet the spark that Matthew and Tara keep talking about is amiss.

The leads work well as a couple, though the noise around them doesn’t add up. The rock-climbing thread fails to externalise Matthew’s demons as intended. Tara blaming her divorced parents for her relationship confusions feels like a stretch.

Where #Love succeeds is in mirroring the urban loneliness within and around us. People may be party animals, go on adventure trips, be constantly surrounded by kin and friends, but still want something more to feel validated, something new that makes them feel alive.

#Love isn’t Balaji Mohan’s best by any means. Arjun Das and Aishwarya Lekshmi work as an on-screen couple and their romantic track sparkles in parts, but there is too much cacophony around them.

Music and Other Departments?

Sean Roldan’s fresh soundtrack adds vigour and peppiness, and the composer appears to be the only one making a sincere attempt to deliver a vibrant show. For a show that wants to capture the many hues of modern-day dating, the frames look too dull and devoid of texture. The 30 to 40-minute runtime per episode is fine, though the writing, by Balaji Mohan’s own standards, could have been better.

Highlights?

– Lead pair’s romantic track

– Sincere in addressing dating realities

– Varied relationships

Drawbacks?

– Subplots feel half-baked

– Entrepreneur/start-up angle isn’t convincing

Did I Enjoy It?

Only in parts, mostly for Arjun Das and Aishwarya Lekshmi

Will You Recommend It?

Watchable, but the spark is amiss.

#Love Web Series Reviewed by M9 News