Some films are made for a mature audience and some for the immature; and then there are some that are made for the immature by the immature and Jawad Bashir’s Teri Meri Love Story falls into that category. For an actor/director who has been around for almost two decades, making a film that’s so bad was not expected. Until you think of Maya, the film he made last year. If you think of Maya (that couldn’t even survive a week in the cinemas) then you most definitely may have expected TMLS to be as big a disappointment, if not more.
Omer Shahzad, Jawad Bashir, Khorem Gultasab, Ushna Shah, Uzma Khan, Laila Zuberi, Mohsin Abbas Haider, Ahmed Abdul Rehman and
Mohib Mirza at the premiere of their film Teri Meri Love Story (Above).
This tehri merhi (twisted) love story leaves audiences in a fix.
Karachi: Some films are made for a mature audience and some for the immature; and then there are some that are made for the immature by the immature and Jawad Bashir’s Teri Meri Love Story falls into that category. For an actor/director who has been around for almost two decades, making a film that’s so bad was not expected. Until you think of Maya, the film he made last year. If you think of Maya (that couldn’t even survive a week in the cinemas) then you most definitely may have expected TMLS to be as big a disappointment, if not more.
The film’s star studded premiere, however, was held at Nueplex Cinemas Karachi on Tuesday evening and was attended by most of the actors present in the city. Be it the versatile Mohib Mirza (who inexplicably plays the leading man in the film) or the ever-supportive Humayun Saeed, Hassan Ahmed or fashion model Sadaf Kanwal, who’ll be making a cine-debut next year, people were there to support Pakistani cinema. The cast of upcoming flicks Janaan, Actor in Law and Zindagi Kitni Haseen Hai were nowhere to be seen (as they’re on their own promotional run these days) though making an appearance would have given their films some added hype, one feels. The cast of TMLS included mostly newcomers other than the lead couple Mohib Mirza and Ushna Shah (making her debut). They were the centre of attention at the red carpet while Mohsin Abbas Haider, newcomers Omar Shahzad and Uzma Khan were all present at the event along with the film’s writer/director Jawad Bashir and actor/co-writer Ahmed Abdur Rehman. The film, unfortunately, was a big disappointment despite the presence of serious actors like Mohib Mirza, Salman Shahid and Laila Zuberi.
Mirza posing with wife Aamina Sheikh who was also present at the premiere to support him.
Teri Meri Love Story revolves around a documentary filmmaker, Esha (Ushna Shah) who falls in love with Ramis (Omar Shehzad). Her friends Sherry and Danish (Mohsin Abbas Haider and Ahmed Abdur Rehman, respectively) have their eyes on her cousin Mona who has come to attend Esha’s marriage to Nael (Mohib Mirza). Things go haywire when Nael learns about Ramis and the rest can be left to your imagination.
The bride’s parents Rana Sahab and Baby Aunty (Salman Shahid and Laila Zuberi) have been injected for comic relief while some stock characters like a butler, a gangster (played by Jawad Bashir himself) also turn up rather unnecessarily and annoyingly. And one is left wondering how Ahmed Abdur Rehman and Jawad Bashir actually came up with the idea of narrating two parallel love triangles without either one of them being compelling or convincing. To top it off, TMLS has a weak sense of humour, which attempts to create laughs from broken English accents, stale punch lines and numerous technical issues that obviously weren’t corrected in post-production. Instead of going for dubbing, the director opted to use natural sound and that may have worked in the 1980s but not in 2016 when most of the cinemas are digital. Moreover, most of the shots in the film are either blurred or out of focus. The Director of Photography, Farhan Golden, must be blamed for this ‘Golden’ effort; he fails to capture the natural beauty of Pakistan, which is a pity.
We could tell you to go and watch the film to support the industry but then again, we’d rather advise you to save up for better films coming up over the Eid holidays.
