10 love stories that made us question everything about love!

While we all go weak in the knees for a good rom-com, there have been quite a few that made us think why they were made in the first place! 

In the past few years, we’ve seen a major decline in the rom-com genre. That’s not just in terms of quantity but quality as well. While running behind the horror-comedy-thriller-patriotic films bandwagon, it feels like filmmakers lately have forgotten what works for us in rom-coms. Either that or they’ve completely erased the old-school romance out of their dictionaries, because these recent ones feel like an attempt to please Gen Zs and the funny part is, even they aren’t liking it!

These love stories made us scratch our heads and question why we’re watching them in the first place. There’s a man falling in love with a robot, a woman getting pregnant by two different sperms at the same time, a love story that glorifies infidelity; the log lines itself makes you roll your eyes, right? While rom-coms is a genre that most of us find comfort in, clearly sometimes the narrative can go terribly wrong!

Also Read: Shahrukh Khan and the sherwani - an eternal love story that's rarely talked about!

Here’s every film that changed the definition of rom-com (and not in a good way!)

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya 

Sifra (Kriti Sanon), a robot designed to the likes and dislikes of Aryan (Shahid Kapoor), was always meant to fall in love with him. She reacts according to his emotions, and makes sure she does everything to make him happy. While the film is trying to prove a point about how women are treated in real life, the execution of it all is extremely haywire. The intention somehow just does not come across like that and the climax of the film just adds to it being a head scratcher! Not sure how we were ever supposed to buy a man getting intimate with a robot in the name of rom-coms!

Bad Newwz

Saloni Bagga (Triptii Dimri) gets pregnant with two different sperm after having sex with two different men on the same night. This isn’t even the most bizarre part yet. What makes you introspect during the course of this film is that consent isn’t just for women, but men too. It works both ways and Saloni clearly disrespects Gurbir’s (Ammy Virk) wish of not wanting to sleep with her that night. Although she ends up with Akhil (Vicky Kaushal) in the climax, nothing about this story feels romantic or comedic in any sense!

Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Waala Video

While the core of it is Vicky (Rajkummar Rao) and Vidya’s (Triptii Dimri) desperate hunt to find their sex tape, the film is filled with regressive jokes about women. Quite a lot of scenes, especially the one with the maid, become rather uncomfortable to watch given how they treat her in the film. The movie overall stops making sense not just as a rom-com but as a narrative too!

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

In Karan Johar’s iconic ‘K movie’ legacies, this one definitely does not make the cut. The movie solely stands tall even today just for the songs, but we dare anyone to watch this film twice! The story unabashedly glorifies infidelity and it’s probably the first and only time you will root against Shah Rukh Khan in a rom-com. Two married people fall in love with each other, and eventually when their partners find out, they help them find their way back to each other? Yes, that’s only happening in Karan Johar’s fictional world! This film definitely wouldn’t work in today’s time as a lot of the jokes and scenes that feel too OTT wouldn’t resonate with the audience at all!

Pyaar Impossible

Abhay (Uday Chopra) meets Alisha (Priyanka Chopra), one of his classmates from college, years later. In order to stay close to her, he decides to be her child’s nanny. Nothing about this is appropriate at all and we have so many questions! How did Alisha just hire him on a whim? How did she not recognize him at all? And how were they ever supposed to fall in love when all of this has started from a lie? None of it makes sense.

Half Girlfriend

Madhav (Arjun Kapoor) meets Riya (Shraddha Kapoor) when he joins a new college in Delhi. After struggling to convince her to be his girlfriend, she half heartedly agrees to be his ‘half girlfriend’. This movie is just a case study on what kind of men to avoid because Madhav clearly did not understand the meaning of consent. Even after Riya repeatedly told him that she isn’t interested in him, he kept pestering her till she agreed, which is basically a majority of Indian men. Not only does this fail as a rom-com, it is heavily problematic to be shown on the big screen.

Jab Harry Met Sejal

We demand the two and a half hours spent on this movie to be returned with interest even today! Sejal (Anushka Sharma) loses her engagement ring and in the process of finding that she falls in love with her tour guide, Harry (Shah Rukh Khan). Firstly, she is an engaged woman flirting with another man, secondly, THE RING WAS IN HER BAG ALL ALONG! If this movie made sense to you, help us make sense of it as well!

Christmas As Usual

We get that Christmas movies aren’t a masterclass in any genre let alone rom-coms, but what we do expect is for them to entertain us. Christmas as Usual which starred Kanan Gill was about how Jashan meets his girlfriend Thea’s Norwegian family over Christmas and the culture clash between them gets rather chaotic. But what felt weird was that Jashan was completely sidelined in the film and it was all about Thea and her family. In fact, at one point, Thea herself disrespects Jashan’s Indian culture but, in the end, they forgive each other. If this was a real life story, Jashan and Thea would be done long ago!

Your Place or Mine

Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) and Peter (Ashton Kutcher) are best friends and total opposites. She craves routine with her son in LA, but he thrives on change in NY. When they swap houses and lives for a week, they realize that they don’t know a lot about each other’s lives. While the concept seems like the perfect set up to fall in love, the leads end up spending most of the film apart. And because they share such less screen time, it’s difficult for us to accept how they just randomly fell in love when there was barely any room for chemistry!

You’re Cordially Invited

It hurts when a rom-com is not up to the mark but it hurts even more when a Reese Witherspoon rom-com doesn’t slap! You’re Cordially Invited failed to bring that quintessential old school charm that Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell are known for. Maybe because amidst fighting a fake crocodile, and ruining each other’s double booked weddings, there wasn’t much space left to fall in love or find that spark with each other!

Are there any other rom-coms that didn't quite add up for you? Let us know in the comments below!

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