movie reviews

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review: Ananya Panday’s Best, We Get The ‘Social Dilemma’ & Yes, We’ll Click On It To Watch!

December 25, 2023

236 4 minutes read

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Ananya Panday, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Adarsh Gourav, Rohan Gurbaxani, Kalki Koechlin

Director: Arjun Varain Singh

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review Out! ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

What’s Good: It tries to showcase the not-so-gleamy side of social media to educate through entangled relationships

What’s Bad: The depth isn’t deep enough!

Loo Break: The set pace won’t allow you

Watch or Not?: Yes, without any expectations!

Available On: Netflix

Runtime: 2 hours 14 minutes

User Rating:

After a very Seinfeld-like set-up, we are introduced to the stand-up comedian Imaad Ali (Siddhant Chaturvedi), who’s joking about explaining situationship to a father, arrange marriage, and other routine things. Using a song as a montage of his social media moments with his two best friends, Ahana Singh (Ananya Panday) & Neil Pereira (Adarsh Gourav), we now know the trio around whose lives the story will revolve around.

Be it Neil’s super-famed influencer girlfriend or Ahana’s dependability on the internet after a heartbreak, all of them are addicted to social media to a level that they allow it to get the better of them. How they fall deep into the illusion of connectivity created by social media is what the main crux of the story is all about.

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review Out! ( Photo Credit – Netflix India / YouTube )

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review: Script Analysis

Director Arjun Varain Singh has penned the story with Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti’s screenplay, and to summarise it in a line, “It talks about the right thing, but the way it takes isn’t probably the most interesting one.” We totally get the ‘social dilemma’ these characters are facing, but the reasons behind the same aren’t properly fleshed out to create the desired impact.

Tanay Satam’s camerawork stands out in giving a character to even the simplest things around, and that’s consistent throughout the film. Nitin Baid’s editing keeps everything under just the right amount of time, helping the pace to sail through without any major hiccups. The “Less scrolling, more living” mantra hits more than it misses.

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review: Star Performance

This has to be, hands down, Ananya Panday‘s best performance to date, and the confidence she evokes is commendable. It also has a lot to do with how her character Ahana is designed keeping Ananya in mind, but she, as an actress, visibly gives it a lot to match the writing on paper. Her character goes through a proper arc, never giving monotonous vibes at any point in time.

After the infamous ‘struggle’ interview, it was really refreshing to see Siddhant Chaturvedi not only working with AP but playing her best friend with utmost earnesty. Imaad somehow feels like an extension of Zain (from Gehraiyaan) and an amalgamation of Zain & Imraan (from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara). I can’t explain how, but that’s how it’s.

Adarsh Gourav gets Neil Pereira on point, both physically and mentally. He has always been a natural, and even here, it’s the authenticity in his performance that helps you connect better with his character. He’s still not getting as much of good roles as he should get. Kalki Koechlin is pretty dependable with her special appearance, not as impactful as Gully Boy but not as wasteful as Sam Bahadur.

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review Out! ( Photo Credit – Netflix India / YouTube )

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review: Direction, Music

Arjun Varain Singh, after assisting Zoya Akhtar on Gully Boy and directing a couple of Divine‘s songs (Kaam 25, Gandhi Money), makes a meaningful debut with this one. The inclusion of stand-up sets in between is a great decision, but the jokes in them are pretty low-hanging. I was hoping for a great, tight set à la Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld, but they were mediocre at best. Zooming out to display ‘Hideaway’ (comedy club’s name) only to reflect the emotional turmoil a character is facing is one of the many good decisions taken by Arjun to say it without saying it.

Imitating a very Gehraiyaan-like vibe, this film’s album screams OAFF-Savera meets Ankur Tewari from the word go. The song that surprised me has to be Karan Kanchan & Rashmeet Kaur’s Ishq Nachaawe, all thanks to its Tera Naam Japdi Phiran-esque treatment.

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan Movie Review: The Last Word

All said and done, just get into this one without any expectations, and I’m sure you won’t come out disappointed. It’s a sweet, real, predictable tale of friendship mish-mashed with the messy algorithm of social media.

Three stars!