Let's start with what works. The ensemble cast is charming, and that counts for a lot in a movie that asks you to follow six people across 150 minutes. Alisha Chopra brings a warm groundedness to her role, while Sparsh Walia does the "charming but clueless" thing with genuine appeal. Sakshi Vaidya and Kunal Vaid have a playful chemistry that makes their scenes pop, and Sargun Kaur Luthra and Tushar Chhibber round out the group with energy to spare.
Director Anuj Saini clearly loves his characters, and that affection is infectious for most of the runtime. The comedy lands more often than it misses, mostly because the cast plays it straight instead of winking at the camera. There's a scene involving a reunion dance performance gone wrong that had the theater genuinely laughing - and it's not the punchline you expect.
Where the film stumbles is in its pacing. At 150 minutes, Pehla Pyaar Doosri Baar has stretches where nothing happens except people staring meaningfully at each other while a piano plays. The second act drags hard, with at least twenty minutes that could have been trimmed without losing a single plot point. And the drama occasionally tips into melodrama - there's a third-act conflict built entirely on a misheard conversation that will make you want to throw your popcorn.
Still, when the film works, it works. The "allure and absurdity" promise is kept in scenes where love makes people do ridiculous things - gate-crashing a family dinner, sending a text and immediately regretting it, showing up at someone's workplace with a grand gesture that's 60% sweet and 40% restraining order.
The film knows it's not reinventing the genre. It's a warm, slightly overlong hug of a movie that understands exactly what it's here to do: make you laugh, make you feel a little something, and maybe call your ex. (Don't call your ex.)
