In Aanand L Rai’s 2013 film Raanjhanaa, Dhanush played Kundan, an obsessive stalker, who cannot take ‘no’, and slits his wrist when rejected by Zoya (Sonam Kapoor).
In Rai’s 2025 film Tere Ishk Mein, Dhanush plays Shankar, who’s as obsessive, but also extremely violent. He beats up classmates with ease and, when rejected by Mukti (Kriti Sanon), storms her engagement announcement with petrol bombs and eventually sets her house on fire.
But while in Raanjhanaa, Zoya was at least repulsed by Kundan, Mukti is inexplicably drawn Shankar. It feels like toxicity masquerading as passionate love, but is actually violence inflicted both on screen and on the audience’s senses.
Written by Neeraj Yadav and Himanshu Sharma, the film opens in Ladakh, where our supposedly “best” man for the job -- Flight Lieutenant Shankar Gurukkal (Dhanush) – is in full combat mode, engaging with the “enemy” just on the basis of a “call of his stomach.” He can’t follow orders, gets grounded, and is handed over for psychological evaluation to Dr Mukti -- who is heavily pregnant but is somehow dispatched to an impending war zone.
The moment they meet, simmering anger, guilt and sorrow bubble up, triggering a flashback to their first encounter.
Shankar, a law student and DUSU president, is introduced beating up boys for political support. Mukti, at the same college, is presenting her thesis on anger and violence. And instead of running for her life, she sees the perfect case study in him, and decides to fix him. He, meanwhile, does change, but not without falling obsessively in love with her.
And when she finally catches on to the intensity of his feelings, she hands him an impossible task. He somehow achieves it, only to discover she’s already moved on, igniting his default trio: anger, resentment and violence.
He would as easily pour petrol on her boyfriend as set her house on fire. The justification? That he’s poor and his mother died when he was ten, which runs thin especially when his father, played by Prakash Raj, is depicted as unfailingly supportive and loving.
While he’s problematic, Mukti is no less. She isn’t repulsed by him — she’s drawn in. When she stops him mid-assault and he says, “Itni sundar ladki ka haath utha hai to kisi gaal pe to padna hi hai” (If such a beautiful girl raises her hand, it has to land on someone’s cheek), she smiles. When he says, “Mujhe fun chahiye,” meaning he wants sex, she doesn’t recoil. And when he finally sets her house on fire, her explanation is: “He’s just in love,” as if love is some kind of illness.
The film wants you to believe it’s about two broken individuals drawn to one another, but it feels more like a case of broken writing. While Shankar’s motivations are understudied, but what is more perplexing is Mukti’s saviour complex -- why she feels compelled to fix him, and why she’s obsessively drawn to him. Oh, and she also becomes an alcoholic out of nowhere. You’ll never know, why.
Rai’s Raanjhanaa had two strong suits: A.R. Rahman’s music and Benares, which functioned like a living, breathing character — its ghats, its cadence, its way of life. Here, music barely leaves a mark, and Delhi is reduced to a cardboard backdrop, explored only through its most obvious contrast: Shankar’s slum versus Mukti’s Lutyens’ Delhi.
While Dhanush and Sanon land a cracking performance, other actors, tall in their way, are underused – be it Raj, Tota Roy Chowdhury, as Sanon’s father, or Priyanshu Painyuli, as Dhanush’s friend.
Benaras and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub appear for a few minutes, but those minutes — the ghats and Ayyub’s trademark ‘Pandit’ dialogue — end up being among the strongest shots in the film.
But at the end, Tere Ishk Mein leaves you uneasy, if not triggered. It leaves you thinking – why are we glorifying toxic, violent, so-called alpha males? And why is it okay for a female to have saviour complex – that her love can somehow fix him? Why are we still exploring them in 2025? Or with Kabir Singh, Animal and Saiyaara, are we sliding back?
Film: Tere Ishk Mein
Director: Aanand L. Rai
Cast: Dhanush, Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj
Rating: 2/5
