Gustaakh Ishq Review: Vijay Varma and Fatima Sana Shaikh’s Poetic World Is Weighed Down By A Weak Story

Set in the lanes of 1990s Delhi, Gustaakh Ishq takes you to the era where love lived in handwritten letters, where shayari wasn’t a performance but a heartbeat, and where longing was a way of breathing. There is a sense of nostalgia on screen; you can smell old books and attar lingering in the air. The story centres around an old printing press, so the impact has been there for some time. As a viewer, I thought I would be taken into a world where silence spoke louder than words. Even the simplest shayaris leave a lasting impact on me. So does all this happen?

Gustaakh Ishq Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Varma, Fatima Sana Shaikh

Director: Vibhu Puri

Gustaakh Ishq Review

Vijay Varma’s character, Nawabuddin Saifuddin Rahman, is trying to save his father’s old printing press. His plan is to publish the shayari of Aziz Beg, a once-famous poet. But Aziz, played by Naseeruddin Shah, isn’t interested at all. He has moved on with his life, fixing watches and staying away from the world of poetry and mehfils.

The story of Gustaakh Ishq is told from Nawabuddin’s perspective, and with him, we feel as if we are stepping into an era where love travelled slower. He poses as a student of Shayaris to convince Aziz to publish his work. The first half of the story embraces feelings of longing and learning, skilfully blending new experiences with the words of the talented shayar. Nawabuddin finds love in Fatima Sana Shaikh’s Mannat, a woman balancing strength and fragility. I assumed that “Aap Iss Dhoop” would tell us a romantic tale and that love would be depicted on the screen as soon as it began to play. Unfortunately, that doesn’t occur.

Naseeruddin Shah plays the wise old man whose life has been shaped by heartbreak. He moves like a man who has libraries of unspoken words inside him. Although the first half reads like poetry, you are searching for the intricacies of wanting something that could break you, of loving someone you cannot fully reach, and of speaking in shayari because everyday language becomes too limited. That never occurs, though. The canvas is made to give the impression that we will witness the layers of emotions as they develop. Each pause on screen was struggling to uncover a hidden corner or meaning of longing, whether it’s soft or sweet or full of scars and consequences.

In the second half, I was hoping for an appearance of emotional depth, but instead, the story starts to falter and lose its direction. The emotional weight is never established in a concrete way, and hence, to see it dissolve into fog leaves you disappointed. The characters are suddenly drowned in grief and suffering, but the film forgets to show us the reason behind their agony. I found myself asking: how do I mourn for characters when the film never allows me to feel their love strongly enough in the first place?

Vijay Varma’s character spirals after a revelation he already knew. After all, his reason and motive for returning to Aziz were already established. So why did he emotionally collapse while listening to someone else’s failed love story? The film never justifies it convincingly. Throughout the film, Naseeruddin Shah’s character keeps speaking about pain as if it is the highest currency of love. But how does one feel for a self-inflicted pain? In Gustaakh Ishq, heartbreak exists without foundation, and sorrow becomes theatrical rather than honest.

The most disappointing aspect of Gustaakh Ishq is the love story between Vijay and Fatima. It is teased as if it were the centre of emotional gravity, but it just ends up becoming a filler for a severely flawed plot. Their relationship deserved depth and progression, and we are robbed of it. So in the end, when the story is brought to a conclusion by showing their fate, I couldn’t care much because the film never makes us truly care about them midway.

Gustaakh Ishq Review: Final Thoughts

Overall, Gustaakh Ishq has a weak emotional core, and its carefully structured world begins to crumble as the story loses its charm. Even if the actors appear captivating, the shayaris feel like forgotten characters that fail to become the backbone and main anchor. The movie feels like poetry without flow, and the era feels more like an aesthetic. There’s a moment when a character jokes that everything sounds beautiful in Urdu. It’s true. But when a weak story depends only on the charm of the language, it doesn’t work. In the end, we’re left with empty pages instead of something meaningful.