I Love You follows the story of a protagonist who is trapped inside her plush office by her obsessive lover. Will she manage to escape unscathed? Over the years, we have witnessed survival thrillers from Hollywood that cater to just 3 to 4 characters in its entire duration. But the writing has to be solid considering that the thrillers are confined to a single location. That was my biggest worry as I did have a look at the duration of I Love You which was just a shade above 90 minutes. But to my surprise, the screenplay was engaging and kept me at the edge of seat for most parts of its runtime.

Firstly, I would take this opportunity to applaud the writers here who did not compromise the world building with the pace of the film. Despite its taut length, there was an effort made in the writing department to creating an ambience for the drama in its first act. So you are introduced to the protagonist, an executive at a swanky and posh office who is ambitious and holds a top position in the company. She is friends with a tech-guy and is in a relationship with another colleague in her company. Now the interesting bit is that you can sense a sinister plan on the fringe that is waiting to explode. The slow buildup in the first 20 odd minutes does validate the fact that something isn’t right and all your fears come true when the protagonist is trapped in her office.

The proceedings are interesting and terrifying with the setting adding up to the intimidating factor. Though the idea itself is far fetched and lacks logic(the offices aren’t closed even during Diwali), if you are willing to brush aside this aspect then there are perks to be gained. The limitation of the setting doesn’t bother you after a point when the cat and mouse chase begins. The writing here had the task of creating fearful moments that would play with the minds of the viewers and that was done pretty well here. The drama isn’t entirely unpredictable, the events do unfold with a certain sense of predictability. Yet, the events do instill a sense of fear in you which was the purpose of the film. The events involving the killing of certain people are revealed bit by bit, some used as a foreshadow that adds to the ambience of the drama so well.

The events leading up to the final act are interesting when the cat and mouse chase is at its peak. There are fearful moments involving one character hiding from the other that does escalate the tensions to an extent. While even the final face-off is layered, I wished that there was more gore involved as that would have escalated the drama to a different height. A little more bloodshed wouldn’t have ‘hurt’ particularly when the motive was to aim at the psyche of the viewers. Even the final conclusion needed to be a little more definite but taking nothing away from the screenplay which did catch me off guard and managed to impress me despite the limitations with respect to the setting.