Set in 2040, LIK, aka Love Insurance Kompany, from Vignesh Shivan, has the tone of a millennial who is becoming a boomer equivalent to Gen Z and the subsequent generations. The futuristic movies that have worked for the audiences have had concepts that take a deep dive into the possibilities of the future and set a drama based on possible scenarios. But Vignesh Shivan’s movie is a broad-stroke mess that just can’t elaborate on the bullet points. Instead of developing intricate ideas, he is pointlessly improvising too many scenes just for the sake of dialogue humor. The movie wants to say that no matter what happens in the technological front, emotional things like romance can never be manipulated. However, the sheer immaturity of the romance we have to tolerate in this film would make Gemini and ChatGPT laugh at us.
In 2040, a business entrepreneur named Suriyan created an app named LIK, Love Insurance Kompany, that basically analyzes relationship compatibility through its own metrics. Our hero Vibe Vassey’s voice was selected as the voice of the app. The irony is that Vasu’s father was totally against the use of smartphones and was running a facility that was almost like a correction center for those who were addicted to social media. What we see in this movie are the events that happen when this app comes in the way of Vibe Vassey’s genuine love towards an influencer girl named Dheema.
I am a millennial, and when people of my generation see young kids not socializing and spending too much time on phones and stuff, we do express our concerns. Those aren’t researched concerns. It is something we say by comparing with what we used to do at that age. The fundamental problem with Vignesh Shivan’s movie is the fact that he is not making an effort to understand the future. He is sort of preaching to the current young generation about taking a social media detox. But he is underestimating the IQ of the generation. If you want to show how true love cannot be measured by AI and algorithms, you need to create an extremely attractive love story. But the flimsy love story Vignesh Shivan has created in this movie is so shallow that, forget the new generation, even his own generation will struggle to see depth in this Dheema – Vassey love story.
Like I said in the beginning, LIK is not interested in developing anything novel. The story notes one would scribble to develop a script are retained almost at the same level in this movie. The character development in the case of all characters lacks nuance. Dialogues are written sloppily, with too much explaining happening. Vignesh Shivan tries really hard to make it engaging by creating 2040 parallels to the 2026 tropes in depicting love and friendship. But the problem is that one can clearly see that he is doing it out of desperation. At one point, he makes the hero say lines like people have ruined the idea of a good male-female friendship by mocking or judging someone for having a bestie from the opposite gender. And the same person is creating this “open-friendship” gag comedy featuring Yogi Babu for the sake of humor. And even the give and take happening between the hero and villain lacks charisma, and it all felt like a stretched and staged skit. The songs from Anirudh, especially the Dheema track, have a feel factor on an album level. But the pacing and abrupt nature of this screenplay fail to utilize that aspect of the songs. In terms of cinematography, there are several “beauty shots,” but none of them enabled the movie to create drama in the story. They may have spent a lot of time on the visual effects part, but none of it blended naturally to make things believable.
The 2040 version of Pradeep Ranganathan doesn’t have a great difference from his 2026 version. In terms of performance, it isn’t offering any challenges to Pradeep as an actor. In fact, the blandness of the writing in many places forces the writing to create scenes that would celebrate the typical Pradeep Ranganathan elements we have seen in almost all of his movies. Some of them were there in the trailer itself. Krithi Shetty’s Dheema’s IQ would remind you of the ultra-cute characters Hanskia Motwani used to play in Tamil films almost a decade ago. Rather than looking pretty and inducing cringe, there was nothing there for Krithy Shetty to do. If seeing this character and this love story is making any Gen Z kid feel moved, I think the real red flag for the future is that. All the signature SJ Suryah traits and moves are getting squeezed out to save this movie. While we do smile seeing some of his reactions, the moment the scene ends, we immediately think about the relevance of such a scene. Even though her screen time was extremely minimal, I thought Gouri G Kishan’s character had more life. Seeman, as the father of the hero, is a disappointing casting.
Through dialogues and visuals, Vignesh Shivan has tried to incorporate multiple brands into this story. One of the clear evidences of the lack of enthusiasm in world-building was the way this movie uses the current Ather 450 as a scooter of 2040. The repeated placing of Ather in this movie clearly indicates the possibility of a collaboration. However, the fact that the movie shows no design upgrade for Ather, even in 2040, feels like a flawed marketing move or the lack of imagination of the director. The logistical requirements for this movie may well be huge. Unfortunately, one can’t really see that sort of effort put into the making of this movie in terms of scripting.
