On one hand, Looop Lapeta is unique. The entire plot relies on the heroine’s athletic skills, quite a rarity in Hindi cinema where the woman does not flex her muscles unless she has to win a medal for India or fulfil her father’s dreams.
Savi (Taapsee Pannu) is an athlete whose promising career ended abruptly, thanks to an accident. At the beginning of the film, she finds herself in a situation where she has to race against time to save the life of her boyfriend Satya (Tahir Raj Bhasin). Looking at the larger scheme of things, one might feel that he is not worth rescuing. Satya is an unemployable young man chasing quick money. But Savi has a reason. If not for Satya, she would not have picked up her life post the fateful mishap. She is the Savitri to his Satyavan.
Directed by Aakash Bhatia, Looop Lapeta is an official remake of Tom Tykwer’s 1998 experimental thriller Run Lola Run, an iconic film that stunned the audience for its innovative form ﹣especially, the fast-paced edit, the use of animation and techno music. A quirky style that was later adapted by ad films across the world.
Bhatia’s film follows an aesthetic style prevalent in the ad film world ﹣loud, garish and whimsical. The film leaves no stone unturned. It inserts a joke in every gap, fills every sober inch within the frame with colours and quirky characters. Consider this early scene where two robbers barge into a jewellery shop. The television in the room is on. Out of the blue, the loud, cartoonish character in the television show steps into the scene’s foreground. Because in Looop Lapeta, even the slightest object within the frame has to vie for attention and sell itself. Also, the two sub-characters in this part resemble the famous twins in the Five-Star chocolate commercial.
But this isn’t to say that Looop Lapeta doesn’t work. It does, in parts. It cleverly uses the Savitri-Satyavan tale from Hindu mythology as a bridge between the German film and India. Savi must save Satya and forgive him for all the foolish decisions he makes to get out of the time loop she is caught in. Their fates are linked. Goa might not have the streets of Europe, but it has the music and a connection granted by history. The setting is picturesque and believably madcap. And Taapsee Pannu’s affected acting style is in sync with the narrative technique.
The plot strays more than it should. Savi (Taapsee Pannu), who has just fifty minutes in hand, runs across Goa, refusing to look for vehicular transportation. On the way, she must untangle problems that she is indirectly connected to. While one can understand Bhatia’s decision to situate his film away from the sense of urgency and building of tension Run Lola Run was founded on, an excess of narrative elements undoes the film altogether. The film spends too much time with a reluctant bride (Shreya Dhanwanthary) just to pass on an easy message, that one should always follow the heart. Yes, these distractions are the hurdles the universe puts in front of Savi, but the problem is, they are too banal. Chaos, in a smart film, forms organically. Here, it feels forced.
Recommended
A few months ago, Venkat Prabhu presented Maanaadu, a superb Tamil language film, which played with the cause-effect idea and the butterfly effect without using a stylistic excess or compromising on the writing. The film extrapolates its whacky narrative device to the social background of Khaliq (Silambarasan). In Looop Lapeta, the only part in the narrative adequately fleshed out is Savi’s relationship with her father, a gym trainer. To save her boyfriend, she must also come to terms with her past. But other than that, Savi is a superficial construct whose whole personality is a funky fashion sense. There is nothing in the film that invites the viewer for a rewatch.
At one point, the bride asks herself why she isn’t happy despite every aspect of the wedding designed according to her taste. “This colour palette, this beautiful wedding dress…” she lists. Several times during Looop Lapeta, the viewer might find themselves in a similar situation, looking for reasons for their inability to sympathise with the characters despite the colours and frills.
*****
This Loop Lapeta review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.