Saiyaara is directed by Mohit Suri. Now, I hope it helps you understand what the story could be.
No, honestly, Mohit Suri has found his muse since his first release as a debutant director – Zeher (2005). Thereafter, most of his movies have the very same plot. Take Aashiqui 2, Malang, and Ek Villain for example. All of these have a similar story of a bad boy falling for a good girl, changing himself for her, then a twist in their love story which separates them for a while—and then they’re back again (if not dead🙂).
This is what Saiyaara is about too.
The movie begins with a superb irony. Ahaan Pandey, as Krish Kapoor, is fighting with a media person against nepo kids (he being one himself; Ananya Pandey’s cousin brother, for starters). He says, “Nepo baby haggenge bhi toh bhi bologe kya haga hai!” and beats the shit out of him. There he meets Vaani (Aneet Padda) with her diary, who is a writer. The first interaction between Krish and Vaani says a lot about their characters.
Vaani, heartbroken, is on the way to the studio in a car with her father. She is sad, sitting by the window, and sees Krish on his motorbike, smoking a cigarette and riding like he has got 100 lives to live. You can imagine—the girl is sweet and innocent, and the boy is wild and crazy. A classic Mohit Suri lead couple!
The music is the backbone of every Mohit Suri movie. From “Tum Hi Ho” to “Galliyan,” he has delivered superhit music irrespective of whether the movie is a hit or flop. This time again, every scene’s value is lifted 100x because of the background music—and it needs to be. After all, Krish Kapoor is a rockstar and Vaani is a writer. The lyrics and music both need to be cared for a lot. Tanishk Bagchi, Faheem A., Mithoon, Arslan N., Jubin Nautiyal, Sachet Tandon, Parampara Tandon, Vishal Mishra, Arijit Singh, Shreya Ghoshal, and Shilpa Rao—all of these talented musicians have given their voices to each masterpiece that sticks in your head for a while.
The debutant has done fairly well, considering what we have been consuming as acting by nepo kids these days. Aneet Padda steals the show in more than the first half of the movie. The innocence, passion, heartbreak, love—every emotion comes from her heart. Aneet has full on Shraddha Kapoor vibes from Ashiqui 2. It felt like Ahaan’s face was mainly ignored in the first half, but but but he jumped right in toward the ending.
The ending scene of Saiyaara, where Krish Kapoor recreates most of his and Vaani’s special moments for Vaani to remember him again, was one of his best performances in the whole movie. I CRIED. It was good.
The chemistry between Vaani and Krish is what kept me hooked till the end because the story is not unknown to anyone—it’s cliché. Look in their eyes, Aneet Padda’s dialogue delivery, the repetitive wannabe romantic lines—everything settles down well.
One thing I found a little too modern for India was—the mother of Vaani allowing her to go for a 2-month trip with her boyfriend even when she believes he is a bad guy who’s going to leave her daughter someday. And the father was surprisingly never even once in the way of their love! Talking about Krish’s father—he is a drunken man who is still in grief over his wife’s death.
Saiyaara was released on 18th July 2025. It’ll be on Netflix soon, as Netflix is their streaming partner. The film is produced by Akshaye Widhani, Yash Raj Films, written by Sankalp Sadanah (screenplay & story), with dialogue by Rohan Shankar. It has a runtime of 156 minutes. Supporting cast includes Alam Khan, Geeta Agarwal, Varun Badola, Rajesh Kumar, Shaan Grover, and others.
In a nutshell—Saiyaara is a clichéd Mohit Suri film. The debutants have done a pretty good job. The music is great. The visuals are fantastic. The dialogues and their delivery have been done fairly well. I’ll rate it a 3.5/5. The major negative point is the story. Otherwise, it could have been a 4.5/5.
Rating: 3.5/5
IMDb shows an 8.5/10 rating based on around 10,000 votes.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer stands at 2/5 (rated by 7 critic reviews).
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