You know, it sometimes feels like films don’t quite appreciate the promise of their premise as much as we do. Miss You, for instance, teases a fascinating idea: a man forgets a significant period of his life after an accident—how does this affect his love life? It’s not exactly a groundbreaking premise; memory loss is a well-worn trope.
But within this framework lie rich possibilities: repercussions on relationship dynamics, explorations of vulnerability, and the bittersweet beauty of rediscovery. We see this potential, but the frustration is in the film’s failure to do so. Take the fallout of the marriage, for instance. The film rushes through the details of the conflict.
The husband’s chair is out of place; his books (which he doesn’t read) have been dispensed with; the wife helped a woman she shouldn’t have (she does nothing wrong).
These reasons feel flimsy, and the film justifies these choices by pointing out that a breakup needn’t stem from seismic causes like abuse or infidelity. It says that sometimes, it’s the quiet, creeping incompatibility that spells doom.
Fair enough—but surely, we need to feel this incompatibility in more profound ways than disagreements over the position of a bed. When the incompatibility isn’t conveyed with emotional depth, it robs you of the chance to feel truly invested in the central pair.
The ideas are there though. For instance, Siddharth’s Vasu is revealed to have been coerced into a relationship, but this revelation comes through as a bullet point, not as the bullet wound it should feel like. It’s simply information handed out, not emotionally affecting drama unfolding. In a premise like this, it’s crucial to dig deep into both characters.
Isn’t that the chief pleasure of the romance genre? Vasu is painted as an irritable do-gooder, and beyond this surface trait, we get little else. Ashika’s Subbu fares worse. She’s introduced as childlike, then abruptly morphs into a spirited activist, with the transition feeling neither earned nor explored. We are given no time to absorb her hurt or believe the confession she delivers in the film’s climax.
This lack of depth is perhaps the film’s greatest failing. If there’s beauty in Vasu unwittingly enabling Subbu’s transformation, the film barely scratches at its surface. If there’s poetry in the idea of a man rediscovering a woman, of seeing her anew, it’s lost in the film’s haste to move on. And move on it does—to distractions that feel jarringly out of place. What are these distractions, you ask? A politician villain who murders at the drop of a hat.
The politician’s drunk son, who breaks heads with bottles. A dance number in which a drunken Vasu laments being born a man and bemoans his inability to forget a woman. A heroine song that infantilises Subbu, only for Vasu to later judge her for “acting like a child”—as if the film hadn’t just exploited this trope for itself.
The film’s memory loss premise, as presented, deserved far better than the five-songs-two-fights treatment. Yet, just when you are ready to give up, the film offers brief moments of sparkle. Karunakaran, as always, makes his character more real than the writing perhaps deserves.
A few witty lines and small jokes land well. There’s a coffee-drinking scene that unexpectedly triggers an important event. And there’s a well-executed final flourish. But these moments serve more as respites than as highlights of a consistently engaging film.
A premise like this should have you welling up. It should leave you longing for the couple to unite. Instead, Miss You leaves you feeling strangely detached. At the end of this two-hour romance, you dimly realise you still don’t know the couple well enough to root for them. And that, for Miss You, is a costly miss.
Director: N Rajasekhar
Cast: Siddharth, Ashika Ranganath, Karunakaran