Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan Review: Story - In anticipation of her first screen test for a movie in which she will play a blind woman, aspiring actress Saba Shergill (Shanaya Kapoor) is getting ready. She travels to Mussoorie with her eyes covered as a result of this. Her manager leaves her here while she is traveling by train. However, because of method acting, Saba chooses not to remove the blindfold and instead trusts a man she gets along with on the train. However, she is unaware that Jahaan Bakshi (Vikrant Massey), the man she is relying on for her safety, is actually blind. They kiss, fall in love, run into each other, save each other, and hang out together. However, just as Saba is about to remove her blindfold, he vanishes, as there is no other way to continue the story. Three years later, I met her once more "somewhere in Europe." Will they put an end to their silly game of blindfolding? Who is truly blind in this case?

Review of Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan:

Since starting this position, every week my fellow critics enter the dimly lit movie theaters with the hopes of enjoying the movie we're about to see and succumbing to the enchantment of 70 mm. The terrible days make you reconsider your career choice, even if there are nice and enjoyable ones. I'm not ranting; rather, I'm cautioning you that the following ten minutes of reading this will be spent explaining why our community is perceived as a group of individuals who are overly prudish and heartless. A film called Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan tests patience and ensures that logic is not only left to languish in a corner but also totally disregarded. It's difficult to dislike anything that features Vikrant Massey and has Ruskin Bond's writing on it, but the unthinkable has occurred, and we must talk.

One of the hardest and most challenging aspects of storytelling about blind people is the art itself. The actor on the screen is just acting; he is not truly visually impaired. Thus, you must believe that they are unable to see, even if you know they can. Keep in mind that some performers wear white contact lenses in order to experience the claustrophobia of darkness. Methods do exist, however. However, none of them involve traveling for a week with a stranger, blindfolded, to a far-off area in northern India. How brilliant a person must be to believe in it, and how ignorant the people around them must be to allow them to do so. In Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan, Saba Shergill does just that.

But maybe that is the least offensive decision that she takes in the course of 140 minutes because not once but at least thrice, or maybe five times, she refers to a blind man and tells him to see. Two of the five times are after she has taken off her blindfold. I am sure Jahaan was not heartbroken but offended. Back to the story. Written and created by Mansi Bagla, directed by Santosh Singh, and adapted from a short story by Ruskin Bond called The Eyes Have It, Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan wants to tell an unconventional story between two people with unconventional situations in their lives. The guy lives with PTSD, the girl wants to ‘prove’ herself, and in between is the mess that can be called a competition to play blind. And not Vikrant or Shanaya, but the makers win the competition.

Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan does not even try to be convincing, even when Kapoor is busy giving a decent and impressive-in-parts debut performance. First, it chooses the wrong era, and second, it alienates logic completely. Of course, you would want me to suspend my disbelief, but you want me to believe a person who has force-closed her eyes will not open them even after a full-grown man has crashed into her and fallen on her and is now kissing? Okay, I would even believe in that. But how do you explain that a girl born to a tech-savvy world with a smartphone in her hand did not even try looking for the guy on the internet after he just disappeared one night, post they confessed their love to each other? He is a music composer, it should not be so hard to find him and know how he looks?

How does one brush that under the carpet? No one is bothered about continuity or having some glue between the scenes. Most of the second half seems like the makers were done and bored to death with shooting the patchwork, so they decided to go without it. Talking of patchwork, Vishal Mishra composed the music album and songs, every single song making all of them sound the same. It feels like you are listening to the same track again and again for over two hours. I understand Jahaan is a singer, and having a single voice gives a better edge to the character, but that doesn't mean everything should sound the same.

Furthermore, the conversation is so pretentious that even the most sentimental and heartfelt moments elicit giggles from the audience. It's as if someone attempted to copy Gulzar Sahab's poetry after reading a few of his works. When that happens, you know nothing is working. Vikrant Massey makes an effort to comprehend this visually impaired man, but he also loses his grasp on reality on several occasions. It occasionally seems as though he is looking the performers in the eyes, which breaks the immersion.

Although the idea is intriguing, the performance is so poor that everything is unintelligible. For example, to make Jahaan envious, Saba's boyfriend kisses her on the cheek and dances with her. JAHAAN IS blind. He shouldn't be envious; rather, he should be insulted.

Review of Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan: Conclusion

Shanaya Kapoor might have put an end to the insolence of her eyes in five minutes by removing the blindfold, but she and a full crew chose to keep it on so that around 100 strangers in a movie theater could roll their eyes at her character's life choices. This is a guidance video on why one should never travel blindly, assuming that one is truly that intelligent.

Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan releases on July 11, 2025. For more reviews like this and everything else from the world of entertainment.

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