Tere Ishk Mein review: messy, intense and complicated but it works.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Release date: 28 November 2025

Cast: Dhanush, Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj

Tere Ishk Mein is one of those films that doesn’t immediately tell you what it wants to be. It begins with confidence but not necessarily clarity, and as the story unfolds, you sense a film that is constantly fighting between ambition and emotional chaos. What ultimately comes through is not a polished love story, not even a tragic one, but something much more uncomfortable - a portrait of two flawed people spiraling into each other’s lives with more damage than intention. It’s good, yes, but not in a glossy, triumphant way. It’s good because it sits in the mess, stumbles a little, and still manages to feel sincere. Tere Ishk Mein review

Filmfare worthy performances by lead actors | Source: IMDb

The acting is there, the music does its job, and the direction is mostly steady. The film presents the messy, uneven connection between two people who were never meant to fit together. Mukti (Kriti Sanon) is buried in her PhD work, disciplined in the past but drowning in alcohol in the present. Dhanush’s character, on the other hand, initially lurks around the university choosing violence with no clear motive, almost like it’s the only language he knows but then goes on to become the best IAF pilot. Talk about the tables turning!

Their paths cross, and instead of transforming each other in a cinematic, romantic way, they drag each other deeper into their unresolved issues. It’s a love story in the loosest definition, more collision than connection.

It would be wrong not to mention the star of the film. Prakash Raj delivers arguably the most grounded performance in the film. Playing a single father who cannot predict what his son will do next, he embodies a man stretched thin between two instincts: correcting his child and protecting him. He gives the film a moral weight that the central couple often lacks, and his scenes are some of the most emotionally coherent moments in the entire runtime.

Kriti Sanon’s role as Mukti is tricky, and she leans into its discomfort. Past-Mukti is stern, intelligent, steady. Present-Mukti is brittle, anxious, and hiding behind alcohol. Many of her decisions make you want to shake her, but when you pause to consider her emotional reasoning, they begin to make sense. Anand L. Rai seems genuinely interested in exploring the female perspective here, not glorifying it, not sanitising it but just presenting it plainly, with all its contradictions.

Dhanush plays his character with a familiar ease. He’s reckless, violent, and unpredictable. There is nothing noble about the way he behaves, and the film doesn’t pretend otherwise. Still, he’s strangely compelling. Even when he’s making terrible choices, you understand him and that’s a credit to Dhanush’s experience as an actor.

At its core, Tere Ishk Mein is about two individuals stumbling through their own identities as they simultaneously wreck each other’s lives. It’s not romantic. It’s not hopeful. It’s not even tragic in the classical sense. It’s just real in a way that leaves you slightly uncomfortable and unsure of who to blame.

However, the film’s first shot tries too hard. We begin with an intense standoff between Dhanush in his fighter jet and a Chinese cargo plane - a scene that looks good but says nothing about the story we’re about to watch. It’s the cinematic equivalent of scrolling past a video on social media because the first couple of seconds weren’t engaging enough. The CGI is surprisingly strong, but the entire army angle feels misplaced. A tighter, more thematic narrative could have helped the film ease into its emotional terrain instead of launching into spectacle that never really pays off.

Tere Ishk Mein is not a clean film, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s uneven, sometimes frustrating, and occasionally unfocused but its honesty keeps it afloat. The performances work, the emotions feel lived-in, and the film never tries to manipulate the viewer into liking its characters more than they deserve.