‘Love Hostel’ Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
A movie opens with a mobile phone video of a boy and girl who’ve eloped, gotten married, and are hoping their families wouldn’t stand in their way.
Considering who the filmmaker is, you can safely assume where things are headed.
Today we’re talking about Shanker Raman’s Love Hostel, streaming now on Zee 5.
Starring my current fav Sanya Malhotra as Jyoti/Billo, always reliable Vikrant Massey as Ahmed/Ashu, and a surprise Bobby Deol as Dagar in the lead roles, Love Hostel is set in a very real part of north India, where women are considered obviously sub-human, and patriarchal structures are upheld by EVERYONE indoctrinated into the system. Younger brothers have all the impunity and sisters carry the burden of family ki izzat.
Aisi ek family mein Jyoti’s choice of man adds insult to injury, kyunki ek toh how dare she have agency, then bhaagi apni shaadi ki celebrations ke time, ladka Muslim hai, khandaani butcher. The two seek legal help and are sent to stay in a safe house, using the term ‘safe’ in its loooosest sense. Jyoti’s political family begins to seek them through a hitman, Dagar.
First things first, please approach this film with a massive trigger alert, consider this a warning. The first scene itself is beyond disturbing, will make your skin crawl, and could be rather agitating to watch. Having said that, the scene also sets a premise that promises a bunch of hooks for your attention.
You meet the all-too-powerful antagonist before another character, and Shankar Raman established clearly, a huge disbalance between the evil and good, the genre is almost horror, where one knows supernatural se ladd hi nahi sakte. Then the screenplay begins to moves fast, very quickly walls are closing in on Billo and Ashu from multiple sides. Vigilantes and law upholders, no one is in their corner, except some social rights activists.
Butttttt, we now live in a post-Sairat world. Moral killing stories, as abhorrent as they are, must dig deeper and expose newer sides of the sick rulebooks some self-appointed guardians have decided everyone must live by. In the era of 24-hour news cycles, these stories demand better exploration of the political family/interfaith marriage conflict.
Sure you’re saying the objection this marriage is wrong and this attitude to die out with an older generation, but how is your story going to speak that to an audience that is already saturated with bad news hitting them from all sides all day long, how are you truly going to turn my insides?
For this, Love hostel mostly relies on indiscriminate, ruthless murders, all carried out by the same man who in doing so, is reduced to a caricature of his own self. Sure the story attempts to introduce interesting little plot points, for instance, politicians in cahoots with social media platforms, a sinister truth we’ve made uncomfortable peace with IRL.
The danger of being in the beef business in today’s India. But barring these, the biggest attention catcher is supposed to be the henchman Dagar. A killer for hire, who fancies himself a moral crusader, has a fucked up past of his own. Bobby Deol is an inspired casting choice, you guys. He’s got the body language, deep secretive eyes, great prosthetic work they’ve done plus the right accent to make Dagar believable and menacing. But to my disappointment Love Hostel falls wayyy short of exploring this character to induce any real emotions towards him.
Dagar is a stereotype who indiscriminately shoots and asphyxiates anyone in his path. You begin to expect him to show up every time anyone is remotely happy or distracted, and kill them. And that’s just no fun.
Vivek Shah’s cinematography coupled with Nitin Baid, Shan Mohammed’s accurate and precise editing makes Love Hostel’s visuals consistently satisfying. Sanya Malhotra’s blood-stained terrified face is captured during the perfect time of day, lighting, and cuts, truly adding to an already pretty great performance. She has built such an incredible filmography, every release with her name attached to it automatically makes me happy. Such an exciting talent.
Oooh! Another actor whose presence in a movie gets me excited is Raj Arjun. He plays a police officer here with a personal axe to grind and his track kept me most involved in the film. He gets an elaborate back story, a sick wife, children, dramatic flashback….and then Is dropped inexplicably, removed from the climax entirely. A character we’ve spent so much time getting to know gets zero closure, it's just upsetting.
Love Hostel mein ek scene mein actor Siddharth Bhardwaj says almost straight into the camera, as it diagonally trolleys away from him…..welcome to love hostel. Oof, so exciting, great shot toh hai par now we’ll explore the failed systems India actually has in place to protect people from their murderous families.
Bunk beds, lovers ke naam on the walls, dirty shared rooms. Lekin instead of turning into an escape room genre movie, which is what the very titled nudged me toward, Love Hostel turns into a Bobby Deol kills people like a mad-man movie, and Vikrant Massey kitni bhi fight karein apne apaar talent se, eventually Love Hostel is an imitation of its true intentions.
Love Hostel is streaming on Zee 5, give it a try.
Now for, relation mein recommendation. To really understand what India’s arbitrary vegetarian-nonvegetarian, certain meats allowed beef ban in some states ruling looks like for butchers and people involved in the trade, watch Fahim Irshad’s incredible Aani Maani on MUBI.
