At the concept level, Love Sitara does actually work. The story following Tara and Arjun who travel to her hometown to work on their relationship before marriage until a bundle of the family secrets are revealed, makes for an interesting premise. My main gripe with the writing though was it appearing to be less layered than it promised on paper while having a woefully weak payback that didn’t really bring the story together the way it ought to have. For starters, the flaw lay in its sketch with respect to the character of the protagonist, Tara. Given that very early on in the film, there is a revelation about her pregnancy was a card thrown on the table a tad too early. Imagine, holding on to this detail for it to be revealed at a later point in the screenplay along with another shocking revelation, something that would have had such a drastic impact in the overall scheme of things. So, what ought to have been an internalized journey for Tara even with respect to her surroundings, turned out to be a rather direct and verbose version of her character that the screenplay standing at 100 odd minutes did not warrant it to be.

The writing her had all the ingredients in store for a delicious meal – the introduction of Tara and Arjun, and their turmultuous relationship that they share, the effects of the past that seemingly have wicked repercussions in the present times. Tara’s family featuring an interesting set of characters who are labeled as liars in the very first scene by Tara given the mismatch of relationships that they are privy too. And Tara’s own journey of motherhood, a secret that she holds onto which is oblivious to her soon-to-be husband. But this screenplay needed a little bit of juggling to reveal which detail is to be revealed at which point in the screenplay, which would have made the writing layered instead of its direct and verbose version.

This is not to say that the writing is a complete miss. To be fair at a point in the screenplay, there is a bit of a conflict that is created in the minds of the viewers with respect to one character, even though his actions are called out by Tara while interacting with Arjun. Now imagine, what if Tara had kept this little secret to herself while not uttering a single word to Arjun or invariably to the viewers, with the onus being on the viewers to decipher the secret. Layered enough? These are the kind of smaller mistakes that the screenplay makes that eventually doesn’t get a chance to fully blossom while having to deal with a revelation that was much less shocking given that the viewers were a step ahead of the other characters. So the overarching revelation barely comes across as a shock.

Despite the slight shortcomings, what works in the screenplay is the breezy subplot involving Tara and Arjun that is also accompanied by a tinge of humour. But there was a minor problem with this track given the little secret that Tara beholds within her, wherein the element of guilt was an important virtue to showcase. This was a thread that needed to be laid out at regular junctures, something that didn’t come across in a convincing manner. As a result, this was another revelation that was slightly off-tune and didn’t quite hit the sweet spot. But one of the major issues that I had with the writing was the final act that was just so verbose and simplistic that the resolution angle of the drama felt so artificial and cliched. In fact, the writers had a golden opportunity of self-realisation on the part of Tara that just felt liked a missed opportunity to me. This pretty much summed up the screenplay that had its moments but never felt layered at any given point of time which was crucial for the drama to hit the sweet spot.