Gustaakh Ishq Movie Review: Gentle, poetic, but not enough pathos

Vibhu Puri’s Gustaakh Ishq is largely set in the late 1990s. It takes us a little while to figure out the exact year (courtesy a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai reference), even as we find ourselves enamoured and charmed by the older times, the romanticism of it all. However, almost as if to pluck us out of our bubbles, Aziz (Naseeruddin Shah) says to his newly-made protege Pappan (Vijay Varma) somewhere in second half, that he feels that the current times are too modern for him — except he says this to someone who too romanticises the past. Meanwhile, its speaking to the audience that’s stuck in the digital overkill-driven times of 2020s, prone to romanticising the 90s.

Director: Vibhu Puri

Cast: Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Fatima Sana Sheikh, Sharib Hashmi, Rohan Verma

There are three principal characters in Gustaakh Ishq, all of whom are dealing with the past in their ways. What unites them is how acknowledge the difference between past and present. In Vibhu Puri’s sophomore film after Hawaizaada (which too had a distinct beauty), there is a genuine love for the visual. There is a rhythm in the way scenes are directed — the Sanjay Leela Bhansali protege clearly has a flair — and genuine affection for the old-world. Especially for us viewers, who have been so distant with a certain earthiness in our movies, these old abandoned forts and fields of Punjab in the film almost look novel and virginally ethereal. But that’s the thing about past — it’s always there, even if we don’t acknowledge it. On a sensory level, the film keeps us charmed and immersed — even as on a storytelling level, it leaves us frazzled. 

It’s almost like some pages flew away from the script while they were filming. The aesthetic design is pleasant and soothing, but the story often looks like a puzzle with too many missing pieces. While there is great potential here for Gustaakh Ishq to be almost a novel-like narrative epic, in its exploration of grief and redemption, the film is too enamoured with its poetry to focus on its drama or conflicts. A lot is told to us instead of being shown. When Pappan finds himself increasingly invested in Aziz’s life, all we get is a bland voiceover conveying the same — we are now privy to something crucial, and yet remain distant from it. When Pappan’s brother repeatedly refers to him as a failure, or talks about his emotional tomfoolery in matters of the heart, we feel clueless about its origins. For a film that’s visibly fond of the older days where things took time to happen, Gustaakh Ishq has little thehraav in its narrative. A lot is happening, and yet it brisks past us, baring leaving an emotional imprint. There is a beautiful line of dialogue from Saba who tells Pappan how trust gradually fades everyone someone disappears, even if briefly – and yet, that’s what it is, a fleeting moment of searing melancholy before the film returns to its emotional scarcity. 

It doesn’t help that such a warm and gentle setting is led by a morally ambiguous protagonist who is always hiding more than he is revealing.  Pappan (a competent Vijay Varma) has a clear goal in a dramatic structural sense, but we are not attached to it, because the scriptwriter is not interested enough. As the narrative unfolds and moves towards the final act, it crumbles under its own lofty weight. While Pappan almost has a mythical arc as he attempts for redemption, we remain distant and befuddled through the unfolding of it all.  Aziz, Minni, Pappan, Bhoore — these are all great interesting characters on their own; it’s just that their equations never flourish in the way they could have. 

Meanwhile, there is something to be said about how well these parts are cast. Sharib Hashmi is extremely endearing as the loyal, jovial caretaker. Vijay Varma and Fatima Sana Sheikh adequately lend an old-world charm to the proceedings. However, it’s Naseeruddin Shah’s presence as Aziz that adds bona fide gravitas to the narrative. It’s almost like the film is making a point by presenting to us a stalwart who, with his command on language and emotional baggage on his face, reminds us of a time when art used to be more purist in nature. Naseeruddin Shah rises above the film — he is not just a poet stuck in time, he is a slice of the past itself. 

And yet, Gustaakh Ishq eventually ends up as a reflection of its emotional core — Aziz, someone who is almost exasperatingly cocooned in his own bubble, refusing to forgive himself or others for trying to change him. While Aziz, like a good film protagonist, moves on, the film doesn’t. It remains too obsessed with its aesthetics and love for the old, without paying any attention to other things that actually matter as much, arguably more. At the end of it, Gustaakh Ishq exists in a world of its own, and plays by its rules. We understand its ambitions, even if it doesn’t win us over.