Love Today Is A Hit. But Does It Deserve A Hindi Remake?

Love Today was one of the biggest box office hits in the Tamil film industry in 2022. The Telugu-dubbed version was also commercially successful. According to reports, the makers of Ajith Kumar's Thunivu paid a high price for the film's Hindi remake rights. It is speculated that Varun Dhawan will play the lead in the Hindi remake. That being said, the film has been called problematic by a certain segment of the audience due to its misogynistic and sexist content. Why would such a problematic film be remade? Didn’t Arjun Reddy and its remakes do enough damage?

The following article contains spoilers for the film Love Today.

Why is Love Today problematic?

The female lead, Nikitha’s (Ivana) father, Venu Shastri (Sathyaraj), discovers that his daughter is dating Uthaman Pradeep (Pradeep Ranganathan). He challenges them to exchange their mobile phones for 24 hours and assures them that if they still love each other, he will get them married. When the duo swaps phones, both of them find out each other's secrets, and that forms the rest of the story of Love Today.

Pradeep is a guy who wants his girlfriend to use a pin while draping her saree to cover herself. On the other hand, he expresses his sexual fantasies about a female actor to his friends. Now both of his acts are unacceptable because no man has the right to moral police a woman’s dress, even if she is related to him. In the second scenario, isn’t it derogatory to objectify and sexualise a woman’s body because she’s an actor? Pradeep and his friends having a WhatsApp group where they share erotica, sexual fantasies, and images of women without their knowledge or consent is a way of normalising the concept that "men will be men."

When Pradeep finds out that Nikitha has been talking to her ex-boyfriend and has gone on a long drive with him, he assassinates her character. Pradeep, throughout the film, is jealous of Nikitha for having a male best friend and is suspicious of their relationship. Why is it that a man and a woman can never be good friends? Women set boundaries and know when men try to cross them. Why is it so difficult for a man to trust his girlfriend or spouse? The very fact that Nikitha has to hide every interaction that she has with another man from her boyfriend is problematic. Where is the trust, understanding, respect and loyalty in this relationship?

Nikitha discovers that Pradeep had approached random women on social media and dating apps, asking for their photos under the pretext of being a filmmaker. She also finds that Pradeep has stored all the intimate photos that she has shared with him, which he had promised to delete after seeing them once. On confronting Pradeep about the pornography in his browsing history, he says that he has never misbehaved with her because he watches porn before meeting her. Who said that men need to watch porn before meeting their partner to control their sexual desires? The concept that watching porn reduces sexual assault incidents is unscientific, irrational, and baseless. If a man can only control his sexual urges by watching porn and not because he respects his partner’s boundaries and consent, that is a toxic relationship.

The problem with the film is that all of Pradeep's mistakes are comfortably trivialised by equating them with Nikitha’s wrongdoings. All his misdeeds are justified, and he becomes the hero because the other men in Nikitha’s life turn out to be the bad guys. A morphed video of Nikitha being released on the internet by a colleague, the so-called best friend attempting to propose himself as the new love interest when Nikitha is vulnerable, and an ex-boyfriend assassinating Nikitha's character are all necessary to portray Pradeep in a positive light. After Nikitha’s morphed video is released, Pradeep suddenly turns into the most supportive boyfriend and the only person who believes in her. He manages to track down the culprit and prove that it’s a fake video. With this scene, the film successfully makes Pradeep the saviour who saved the damsel in distress and dismisses all his past wrongdoings. However, would he have supported her even if the video was real but was filmed without her consent?

Even at the end of the film, we only see Pradeep apologising to Nikitha for hurting her. But did he truly realise that he wasn’t just being a misogynistic boyfriend but was also breaching cyber safety norms? With the idea of love so messed up in the current generation, filmmakers really need to be socially conscious about the messages they deliver. Simply put, Love Today shouldn't be remade because it glorifies toxicity, misogyny, sexism, and misrepresents love.

Suggested Reading: From Pushpa To Kabir Singh: How Hindi Cinema Made Misogyny Cool