3G Love Review

One did expect a sprightly take on the vagaries/superfluity of new age love (for want of a better word) because the title itself suggested that.  3G Love, it turns out, shakes up all the well-known opinions about teenage love and romance, lacing it with some jocular dialogues here and there.  But there is nothing more than this mild dosage of campy and crazy droll. It is old wine, it is oldish presentation.

It is beautiful of the dialogue writer (the director himself) to have said that much of what goes for love is nothing but 'lifestyle' for the girls who see a financier in the boy, for the boys who see a sex object in the girl.  For a film given to playing to the gallery from the start, the denouement of each love story (there are half a dozen - more or less - such minnow stories) is nothing but happy.  Even a father (Rao Ramesh) who had said that love cannot finance the ever-increasing cost of living gives the nod so easily.  After a whole lot of realistic pontification (most of it done by the youngsters themselves, each presenting their point of view rather forcefully), the way they easily revert back to normalcy gives us a feeling that, just as an alcoholic returns to his old ways in spite of being brainwashed about the injurious effects of alcohol consumption, lovers, who are apparently afflicted by one of the worst lifestyle maladies (going by the good point raised by the film), come back to the fold of their respective beloved characters - forgetting and forgiving the 'biryani'-eaters (those who make love to other girls occasionally), amongst others.

It is praise-worthy that a character sensibly says, "Parents ask their male wards to not cause pain to girls.  The day they ask their female wards not to play with boys, we won't find boys who madly love girls ending up being dumped by her after she finds a better guy".  It is a worthy moral lesson.

There is no story as such, it is all about how one girl is made to think in a particular way by her friends in the hostel, how girls, being congenitally fickle-minded and insecure (not the film's stance), fall in confusion when two guys propose to them.  One character proudly announces that having three boy friends has its advantages, while another advices against having more than one.  An anti-male girl in the same hostel convinces her friends that boys are using  love as a tool to reach their target (sex), because marriage is time-taking and is tied to the feelings of many parties (read elders).  Never the one to take love seriously, the girls themselves are now in a dilemma about the bona fides of their guys.

There is one pair (the girl looks dull, the boy is a match to her looks) that typifies the rare romantic types.  The emotional girl says that her heart does not change after going through a better bio-data (read the match fixed by parents) and the guy learns that it is money that is required to emerge successful in one's love life.

For all the varied lives, 3G Love descends into boys versus girls brouhaha.  One lengthy conversation begins with each sex finding fault in the thinking of the other, only to unnecessarily veer towards Eve's sins, how girls are copying boys' fashion sense, and more nonsense.  The film itself will be remembered (if at all, by a minority) more for how it celebrates promiscuity and vulgarity.  One girl, who had a coitus encounter with her boy friend, vomits in front of her hostel mates.  A guy who wants to graduate to Stage II of Love wants to learn from experienced guys how he has managed to advance to a higher stage in, well, love-making.  One girl speaking of her friend's dress begins saying a word and then, we listen a long beep.

It does depict reality but it is in-your-face.  It is nothing surprising, the film seems to say, that most love stories do not consummate in a marriage for one reason or another.  Relationships are a gloss that both floozies and calculators use to benefit from each other.   After 5 years, approximately, they part ways perhaps without shedding a tear.

A range of characters reflect the thinking of so many youngsters.

The performances are good.  The young and unknown faces pull off the little, deglam roles with confidence.

Technically, it is a bland and off-colour movie.  The songs look so lengthy that they hamper the pace.  The length could have been chopped by at least 15 minutes.

Verdict: It is in-your-face teenage love film, yet again.  There is nothing novel about it, only the dialogues make sense here and there.

Released on: 15th March, 2013