Feels Like Ishq doesn’t aim to change the world, but maybe it should have aimed a little bit higher. The webseries has interesting premises for all six of its stories, but a lot of them are hit or miss. In some cases, they fail to make much of an impression.
Directed by Anand Tiwari, Ruchir Arun, Tahira Kashyap, Sachin Kundalkar, Jaydeep Sarkar and Danish Aslam, the six shorts cover a variety of scenarios, from the eve of a wedding to quarantine, job interviews, office romance and even a protest. These stories aren’t about overwhelming, passionate love but rather about shy, tentative beginnings exploring the first spark of love.
The first story, Save the Da(y)te about a chirpy bridesmaid (Radhika Madan) teaming up with a man from the wedding planning team (Amol Parashar) to find the missing bride starts things off on a spirited note. Madan shines as the slightly self-obsessed Avani and Parashar does well enough in keeping up with her.
The second story, Quaranteen Crush, is a simpler story about a teenager falling for his neighbor’s newly arrived granddaughter during the quarantine and making excuses to meet her and get to know more about her. The next story, Star Host, is a little more engaging, featuring a teenager (Rohit Saraf) dealing with a newly single guest (Simran Jehani) in his Airbnb’ed family holiday home at Mahabaleshwar. It starts things on a promising note but it ends before the two get to really make a genuine connection with each other.
The fourth story, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not, has a quirky protagonist (Sanjeeta Bhattacharya) who falls for a fiery coworker (Saba Azaad), and is stuck in the throes of the familiar agony of wondering whether your crush also has feelings for you. It handles the LGBTQ subject matter with a light touch, acknowledging the uphill climb towards acceptance but also showing how you can still be happy in your own corner of the world.
The fifth story, The Interview, we find characters from a more middle class background vying for a job at an electronics retailer, who, of course, fall for each other even as the woman (Zayn Marie Khan) coaches the man (Neeraj Madhav) on how to do well.
The final story, Ishq Mastana, features a recently single Kabir (Skand Thakur) trying to hook up with activist Mehr (Tanya Maniktala) during a protest, but things take a sudden turn when they and Mehr’s other activist friends are arrested by the police. It raise some interesting topics, but it meanders and goes for an ending where the two reach a new shared understanding, which feels unearned for a thirty minutes short story.
Feels like Ishq never rises to the occasion and exceeds expectations, but it’s a breezy enough watch if you want to see modern takes on romance in the Indian subcontinent. If you’re looking for something more meaningful, you might be better served with Amazon Prime’s Modern Love.
