Quarantine Review: A Cocktail Of Emotions

N. Sunil Kumar who is popularly known as Darling Krishna turned director with acclaimed Kannada film Love Mocktail. This film takes us through the love journey of Adi (Krishna is sincere and effortless) as he narrates his ‘love stories’ to a nosy college girl Aditi (a likeable Rachana Inder) on their road journey.

As a teenager Adi falls in love with his tuition mate, who eventually turns him down. After few years he comes across a rich girl Joshita (Amrutha Iyengar is impressive), who has pretty high hopes for him. Adi settles down in a mediocre job and works hard to reach to a financial status that he could keep Jo happy. Things don’t work out between them as he couldn’t reach the pretty high expectations of Jo.

He then proposes to Nidhi (Milana Nagaraj is superb in a character that is any man’s dream girl) and they both experience love, joy and pain together. Autograph, Premam and a couple of other movies were made on similar lines. The protagonist experiencing love in various stages of his life and finally finding the right girl is a theme that is not new to South Indian filmgoers.

Krishna is aware of it and doesn’t try too hard to make Love Mocktail a special film in terms of writing. He keeps it extremely grounded and creates life like situations that are very entertaining to watch. ‘Teenage romance’ is not for everyone. Not all grownups are comfortable to watch teenagers expressing matured emotions of deep romance. Krishna’s take on it is enjoyable because of the innocence and purity in those scenes.

Krishna maintained the fun tone throughout the film. Exchanges between Adi and Aditi as he narrates the story are enjoyable. The romance track between Adi and Jo is the best part of Love Mocktail. A lot of scenes are very relatable to the middle class youth. Waiting until it is 12 AM to make the most of ‘Free SMS’ service, the friendly banter between close buddies, teasing the onlooking young girls at a restaurant and many other such extremely relatable fun scenes make Love Mocktail a must watch for the genre fans.

Most of the comedy is situational, which is why watching Love Mocktail in Kannada with English Subtitles isn’t a hassle. The pace slows down after the entry of Nidhi’s character and some scenes are very lengthy and downright boring. Second half becomes predictable after a point. The fun element is pushed aside as the focus shifts to emotions. Despite the predictability factor, climax is good.

Krishna has written some scenes that will instantly connect with the youth. Jo coming back after seeing Adi’s whatsapp profile picture and trying to blame him for his mistakes and Adi giving it back to her strongly should have excited youngsters, especially the teenage boys while watching Love Mocktail in theaters.

It is neatly shot and has a very pleasant soundtrack that will never want us to skip the songs. All in all, Love Mocktail is a pleasant romance comedy with a cocktail of emotions that can strike a chord with viewers across borders.

Streaming On: Amazon Prime