If you want to spend a tranquil, placid three hours with your beloved, this is the film for you— buy a ticket or two and send your mother-in-law to the cinema. Still interested in reading the review? Then read on…

Shiv (Sushant Singh Rajput), the quintessential cocky Punjabi boy with the six-pack chocolate-boy looks goes to Budapest on work and bumps into desi chocolateur Saira (Kirti Sanon) at her confectionery in the European city. A connection (raabta) is formed. Saira sees the two as ‘mysterious, stylish, cool and cracked’. Mysterious, perhaps, as both have visions of water engulfing them — possibly a result of their previous lives.  The two forsake their steady partners to cavort through the cobbled streets of Budapest.  The now-on, now-off couple romance each other, even disregarding a clairvoyant they consult. Till the proverbial triangle is formed. Liquor baron Zakir Merchant (Jim Sarbh) sets eyes on Saira, telling her that they are reconnecting after centuries.

Post-interval the film changes track. The previous life, centuries-ago- warfare and rivalry is shown in a ‘Game of Thrones’ and desi ‘Magadheera’ style with CGI galore.  The ‘All’s well that ends well’ maxim comes at a huge cost to the viewer. If the interval came as a breather, the ending comes as a respite. Sushant Singh Rajput is confident and after ‘M.S. Dhoni’ was to be expected. Kirti Sanon is average and their chemistry in more than a few scenes invisible. Jim Sarbh is a fine actor, but only when the script and story (Neerja) permits him to be so. Here in Raabta, the lacklustre script and inane story definitely inhibits him from putting in his best.  His Hindi diction in the film is awful (unless it is deliberate).

Debutant director Dinesh Vijan, with barely a clue as to how to take the story forward, seems to be clutching at straws an hour and a quarter into the film. Writers Siddharth-Garima too seem to have given up at a certain stage in the film.  Visions of ‘Befikre’ during the initial stages of the film soon evaporate. Part drama, part romance, part fantasy — Raabta is a hotch-potch of convoluted themes and an insipid script stretched to over two-and-half-hours — the only consolation being Rajput’s few scenes  in the first half and the Arjit Singh rendered ‘Ik vaari aa’. Even Deepika Padukone in the item song (cameo?) fails to impress.