Aap Jaisa Koi Review
Director: Vivek Soni
Date Created: 2025-07-11 17:52
2.5
Aap Jaisa Koi Review: Directed by Vivek Soni, this Netflix film attempts to get us familiar with some modern relationships with the help of some old-school tradition, dating apps and Bengali family drama. The film is led by R. Madhavan as Shrirenu, a 40-year-old Sanskrit teacher who has never been in a romantic relationship and Fatima Sana Shaikh as Madhu, an unapologetic French language teacher hailing from Kolkata.
The movie also stars Manish Chaudhari, Ayesha Raza Mishra, Namit Das and others in well-played supporting roles. With a runtime of 114 minutes, the film takes you along on Shrirenu’s journey that is guided by a dating app, “AJK,” and what happens when he falls in love with someone he knows in real life, unbeknownst to him.
Aap Jaisa Koi Review
At first, I did enjoy the tone of the  Aap Jaisa Koi film. Shrirenu’s awkwardness, his family’s overbearing nature and his unspoken desire for human connection both rang very true and emotional. I even laughed a couple of times, such as when he hooked up with his friend, Deepak, with whom he has a series of cringeworthy, awkward conversations regarding love and dating.
I was interested in the idea of a voice-only dating app; it seemed very contemporary and made me want to see what would happen. Shrirenu and an anonymous girl from the app (later Madhu) chemistry came as a surprise to me (in a good way), and I didn’t feel manufactured at all. They had honest, genuine conversations, and I found myself rooting for them.
The movie also does a great job of showing how older single men in small-town India are disenfranchised when it comes to love. In this case, Shrirenu isn’t this machismo hero type — he’s quiet-spoken, introverted and insecure. That was nice to see. For once, I didn’t feel Bollywood was doing a movie that only celebrates the loud-mouthed and arrogant male hero.
But then the movie turns. Suddenly, everything changes the moment Shrirenu discovers who the woman he has been talking to is. He gets enraged, controlling and, quite frankly, toxic. I get the filmmakers trying to delve into deep male insecurities that are a part of our culture, but the manner it was done was exaggerated, and at times almost unbelievable. Rather than forcing the viewer to see Shrirenu’s inner turmoil, the movie becomes sermon-like.
There are sweeping monologues of the characters discussing patriarchy, love, as if they were giving lectures. All important topics, naturally, but the story becomes leaden and confusing all of a sudden. The emotional investment that I had established in the first half was broken, and I found myself spacing out in the second half.
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Another thing that didn’t work for me was how the movie shifted its focus to the issues of the relationship between the brother and the sister-in-law. It was a half-baked plot, and it robbed Shrirenu and Madhu of their due spot in the spotlight. Maybe it was done to show how relationships evolve, but in fact, it failed.
Aap Jaisa Koi movie does have its positives, though. The cinematography is stunning. From the streets of Jamshedpur to old Kolkata, the visuals are rich and detailed. The costuming is also up to mark — the clothes the characters put on reveal something about them.
Performance-wise, I thought R. Madhavan was justified in portraying a man fighting within himself. His body language, his expressions — all flawless. Fatima Sana Shaikh is also fantastic, but then her character is loosely written. Ayesha Raza Mishra and Manish Chaudhari were great in their cameos.
I also liked the fact that the film tried to represent Bengali culture without turning it into a joke. Bengali people are caricatured in cartoonish fashion in most Bollywood movies, with all the expected stereotypes, but here they seemed to hold their heads high. That was a welcome relief.
The biggest problem with Netflix’s Aap Jaisa Koi is that it can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. It tries to be a liberal romance, but ends up rationalising poor behaviour, all in the name of “emotional complexity.” The payoff, especially, was tacky. The ending felt rushed and unearned after everything that happened. I wanted a moment of self-awareness, or just a poignant ending, but the movie wraps everything up in too neat a package.
Netflix Aap Jaisa Koi Review: Summing Up
Aap Jaisa Koi is a film that ultimately tries to do too much and say too little succinctly. This one has a fine beginning, a wonderfully distinct set-up, and relatable characters then goes off the rails in the last 50 per cent. The social commentary is blaring, but any emotional impact registers at a frequency well below the human level.
Nevertheless, I do appreciate that the movie attempts to comment on love, loneliness, and what is demanded of both men and women in Indian culture. It’s not a bad movie — it’s just considerably less clever or perceptive than it believes itself to be.
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