Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan – is a Misfire. PK Verdict:⭐️⭐️ (2/5)

Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan – is a Misfire. 
What promised to be a tender, emotionally driven love story — potentially exploring the underrepresented narrative of a specially-abled romance — quickly collapses into a frustratingly familiar and shallow cinematic exercise. Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan is neither poignant nor passionate. It’s simply lazy.

From the trailer, there seemed to be a sliver of hope — a film that might use its romantic premise to delve into something deeper. Instead, the film becomes a montage of clichés: boy meets girl, predictable hurdle, obligatory misunderstanding, and the ever-so-boring redemption arc. Except here, none of it has the emotional weight needed to land.

Vikrant Massey, an otherwise dependable actor with impressive credits (12th Fail, Sector 26), seems oddly out of place here. For the first time, he looks like he’s acting — and not in a good way. There’s a performative discomfort in how he handles the romantic lead, and sadly, the writing does him no favours. His character is undercooked, robbed of layers, and written with such superficiality that even Massey’s seasoned talent can’t salvage it.

Opposite him, Shanaya Kapoor debuts with the kind of half-hearted launchpad Bollywood needs to stop producing. She looks the part, but there’s no character arc to play with. The script treats her more like a prop in Vikrant’s journey than a character with agency. One can only hope she gets better-written roles in the future because this one does nothing for her potential.

For the first 40 minutes — which feel like an hour — the film insists on focusing solely on the leads, but without meaningful dialogue, emotional stakes, or even decent chemistry, their presence becomes grating. There’s no supporting cast to add depth, no subplots to anchor the narrative, and no world-building that makes their romance believable or moving.

The music, usually a saving grace in romantic dramas, is painfully uninspired here. Songs appear more out of obligation than narrative need, and several even feel intrusive, interrupting already dragging scenes.

Direction lacks vision, staging is flat, and emotional beats are completely off-mark. The film desperately tries to tug at the heartstrings but doesn’t earn any of its sentimentality. It’s as if the filmmakers believed romance itself is enough — forgetting that storytelling, characters, and atmosphere are what actually make one fall in love with a love story.

In the end, Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan is a misfire. Not daring enough to be unique, not well-crafted enough to be moving. It’s a gustakh (audacious) film indeed — for thinking it could get by on charm alone, without doing the hard work of writing, directing, or even feeling.

PK Verdict: Tin ⭐️⭐️