Aanand L. Rai's Tere Ishk Mein is presented as a standalone spin-off to Raanjhanaa, but it's also spiritually connected to Zero and Atrangi Re. Like in that 2018 romantic drama, a zero becomes a hero here when a rowdy college student ends up being hailed as the best pilot in the Air Force. What's more, the intoxicating interplay of fire and water that Rai started in Atrangi Re (and that was also present in Haseen Dillruba, a movie in which Rai served as one of the producers) returns with equal force in Tere Ishk Mein. It's there in the scene where Shankar (Dhanush) tells Mukti (Kriti Sanon) that when she is not with him, his body bursts into flames. Almost immediately, as if on cue, the rainwater begins to fall on the characters, but instead of dousing the fire, it seems to give it oxygen, like petrol (after fire and water, it's another new element in Tere Ishk Mein), as Mukti runs away from Shankar and hugs another man. Before a corpse is burned on the ghats of Varanasi, we get a shot of a boy pouring water on himself. It rains when Shankar, in front of Mukti, helps a professor during a song sequence. Later, Shankar sets a home on fire. He hurls explosives like they are Diwali rockets — something he literally does at one point. Why does he play with rockets? Because Valentine's Day is around the corner, and he and his friends don't have a girlfriend. If he can't have a girl, then no one else in the college will have a date.
Shankar, in other words, isn't...right in the head. He has a loose screw and is referred to as "gutter ka keeda" by a character. Shankar, for his part, isn't afraid to show his ugliness. He runs after a student and hits him with a belt. He even slaps a bus driver. Shankar doesn't have a filter. He goes as far as asking a male professor if he has had sex with a female teacher. During the opening scenes of Tere Ishk Mein, Shankar says that aggression is a choice, not a reaction. It's a choice he almost always makes. Mukti, on the other hand, believes that violence is curable. She has written a 2200-word thesis paper, but the professors won't accept it unless she offers practical results. Meaning: she has to cure Shankar if she wants to graduate from the college. Mukti, too, has a loose screw in her head, but she also has a bit of moral conscience. It's this conscience that, for a while, holds her back from fully crossing the line she draws before starting her experiments with Shankar. Mukti clearly establishes that she will spend time with Shankar for her research. He can, if he wants, take this opportunity as a sign of romance. "Agar mai pyaar kar baitha toh puri Delhi phoonk dunga," Shankar warns. Mukti takes this warning as a joke — she, in fact, doesn't take Shankar seriously until things become dire.
When Mukti conducts her research and takes notes, she describes Shankar as a man without ambition. She's correct. Shankar lacks major goals in life, wandering aimlessly like a keeda, an insect. Without his own aspirations, he follows the path set for him by Mukti, her dad (Tota Roy Chowdhury), or his own dad (Prakash Raj). One tells him to be a good boy, another tells him to prove himself by becoming an IAS officer, and the third character says he wishes Shankar could become a pilot. The fact that Shankar achieves all three targets only proves that he has great potential, immense dedication, and talent. It's just that what Shankar truly craves is love — the love that Mukti brings into his life simply by being there. He doesn't care about the UPSC, nor does he care about bills or finances. All he wants is Mukti, who, true to her name, liberates him from an unbearable burning sensation. Shankar's skin has been burning ever since the death of his mother, who met her maker while trying to save someone from fire. He longs to be cradled by the gentle hands of a woman, a tenderness he will never receive from his father, Raghav.
It's not that Raghav doesn't love Shankar. After telling a policeman that he should let Shankar rot in prison, he quietly thanks him for not filing an FIR against his son. Raghav might mock Shankar for his UPSC aspirations, but he also silently places a cup of tea on his table. Would Shankar have turned out differently if Raghav had been more open with his fatherly affection? Probably, but in Rai's world, sanity shouldn't be sought nor expected. Sane, proper, and logical minds walk on predictable, morally correct paths. That path, and those individuals, look nice in real life. Fiction, however, is an escape from reality, and filmmakers like Rai and Sandeep Reddy Vanga turn it into a canvas for their wild, anything-goes cinematic visions. They not only create demented individuals; they get so close to them that "respectable" people, including some critics, recoil in horror, and they come out yelling, "The movie is filled with toxic characters." If, after watching movies like Tere Ishk Mein and Animal, all you can do is comment that the characters are toxic individuals, then you should also add this note to your bland, obvious criticism: "The Sky is blue, and water is liquid."
Rai, along with writers Himanshu Sharma and Neeraj Yadav, removes all the filters from his directorial vision. The filmmaking team comes across as self-assured as their lead character. Their story is infused with creative touches, such as when Mukti's heels get stuck on the staircase leading to Shankar's small house. They also thrum with passion, as is evident in the scene where Mukti vigorously commands Shankar to listen to him, triggering an earth-shaking explosion (this explosion results from Shankar's aggression, but it also seems to stem from Mukti's emotions). The audience quickly figures out that Mukti is drawn to Shankar, but how do you visually convey this development? In a very subtle, unobtrusive shot, Mukti casually takes Shankar's cigarette. And how should one take the scene where Shankar orders his boys to fetch him two chairs, and they take two seats out of a bus? It feels... unexpected; it somewhat reminds you of that moment in Animal when Ranvijay brings a gun into a class. Still, the image that has been haunting me, which I think gloriously displays Rai's imagination, is the one where Shankar walks down the runway, moving towards his jet, while we see Mukti smiling for him and Raghav dancing behind him, like a proud father. You have to be insane, daring, confident to come up with such a precarious image during an emotional moment. One misstep and the whole scene could have collapsed. Rai, though, holds it all together. He is a mad genius.
This mad genius, however, makes a few missteps here and there. The most glaring of them all is the decision to set Tere Ishk Mein and Raanjhanaa in the same universe. When Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub's Murari appears, we are asked to cheer for him in the same way superhero movies ask us to cheer for cameo appearances. He also makes the movie's religious connotations explicit, rendering them dull and ridiculous (I chuckled when Murari praised Shankar in the end). The Raanjhanaa tune further takes you out of the moment, so much so that you wonder why Tere Ishk Mein couldn't have existed on its own two feet. What's up with this lame fan service? I think after Atrangi Re's bad reception (which was, anyway, unwarranted), some part of Rai trembled with fear, and so, for a theatrical release, he decided to exploit nostalgia to secure box office success. I wish he had placed 100% trust in his instincts as a filmmaker. The reason people gave for hating Atrangi Re was, anyway, terrible: they were turned off by its mental health depiction. They were seeking reality in a fantastical world. Another issue with Tere Ishk Mein is that Roy Chowdhury's character is poorly written. We didn't need that scene where he tells Raghav to apologize to everyone. These cheap shots spoil our mood; they are overly manipulative and awful.
There was one false note in Atrangi Re, however, and it was the casting of Sara Ali Khan. Tere Ishk Mein has no such problem. All the actors here are top-notch. Still, something feels off about Dhanush's voice — it doesn't fully gel with the movie's emotions. When you hear him, it's as if you're listening to someone recorded in a studio and synced to the lips later in post-production. One Dhanush performs on screen, while another delivers the lines from somewhere else. This sense of disconnection undermines the strength of the dialogue, making it sound unintentionally hilarious. Nonetheless, Rai's unhinged artistry is so seductive that the flaws don't spoil the big picture. Mukti and Shankar are not just broken from the inside, but the filmmakers break them from the outside as well. He is tortured by the police to the point that blood flows from his head. She tortures herself through alcohol to the point that blood flows from her nose, hands, mouth, and stomach. Even Shankar's aircraft is destroyed (by fire) in the end. In Rai's universe, everything is prickly, stormy, inflammable. Tere Ishk Mein may not burn as brightly or as intensely as Raanjhanaa or Atrangi Re, but it remains a blazing candle for lovers unafraid of being consumed by fire.
Final Score- [7.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times