‘Love in Vietnam’: Plot lost in transit

A forced love triangle between the singer with a tortured soul, the woman equivalent of ghar ke daal chawal, and the exotic manic pixie dream girl has, in Bollywood, been flogged more times than the proverbial dead horse. Add half-baked plots from every romance trope and a ton of product placement, and you get ‘Love in Vietnam’ — the poor man’s ‘Saiyaara’.

We open with Punjabi stereotypes — “aahos” and “puttars” — galore. As the protagonist Manav, Shantanu Maheshwari resurrects his ‘Dil Dosti Dance’ cutesy charm but seems to leave behind his ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ acting chops — as if he prepped for the film by listening to ‘Rockstar’ in one ear and ‘Kabir Singh’ in the other, but gave up halfway and scrolled Instagram.

Manav is an orphan, but raised in luxury by bade papa (Raj Babbar), because in Bollywood, angst must come wrapped in upholstery. One fine day, bade papa decides to ship Manav off to study farming — the only Punjabi calling, apparently — not in ‘Kaneda’ but, in Vietnam.

There, between MakeMyTrip-esque B-rolls, Manav discovers a painting of a woman he instantly adores. During his daily pilgrimage to the gallery, a voice from an amused audience demands an explanation for his obsession. She looks like his mother, he says, as the crowd erupts into laughter and Freud grins in his grave.

Soon, Manav learns the woman is Linh (Kha Ngan), an artist and dancer. They bond at an unconvincing pace until the script pulls its most troubling trick: a kiss where Linh turns away, visibly uncomfortable, only for Manav to not back off. Consent is painted loosely as, seeing her disturbed, he vows to “change… for you!” and she melts into him: a dangerous message for the young, impressionable target audience.

All this while, Simmi (Avneet Kaur) — betrothed in childhood by the hero’s mother’s dying-wish logic — loyally tags along. She is deeply in love, while he cannot care less (who could have seen that coming, right?)

At one point, Manav lands next to Linh at night, no explanation offered — frequent teleportation being the film’s accidental foray into sci-fi — and instead of pepper-spraying him, she teaches dance. Towards the end, Linh goes ‘missing’. In our love-struck hero’s pursuit to find her, strangers happily give away addresses — of a hospital, Linh’s mother’s, and grandmother’s — because the film’s world abandons all sense of safety to help the hero.

With money running out, he grows a beard and dons grey rags — cinematic shorthand for poverty and heartbreak. Simmi eventually finds him. She bathes and grooms him like a stray and waits tables as he sings in cafes — where he’s instantly famous, until the next scene forgets he is.

In one scene, the homely Simmi serves copper lassi glasses to the family, the film stereotyping both women and Punjabis in one shot as its victory lap.

Avneet Kaur’s earnest performance almost redeems Simmi, but the film undermines her, written with all the personality of cardboard.

No spoilers here, but if you think you can predict the ending, congratulations: whatever you imagined is most likely better than what they filmed.