Love Under Construction review: Neeraj Madhav and Aju Varghese keep us engaged in this comedy drama | Web Series

Love Under Construction takes us through the lives of two cousins – Pappettan (Aju Varghese) and Vinod (Neeraj Madhav) – who are like chalk and cheese when it comes to their dreams and life perspectives. While Pappettan lives in Kerala with his mother and works as a medical rep, his cousin Vinod lives in Dubai and is busy building the dream home for his parents in Kerala. In Dubai, he meets Gouri (Gouri Kishan) and the two fall in love. And it’s here that life throws him a curveball as Vinod loses his job and Gouri feels they should move to Canada in search for better prospects. The couple decide to return home to talk to their parents about marriage before they make the big move to Canada. What happens when they arrive in Kerala? Do they get married and move to Canada?

Writer and director Vishnu Raghav has taken the premise of an NRI Malayali man building his dream home and the issues he faces along the way in this and his personal life and woven a romance around this. The director has added numerous elements common in God’s Own Country. For instance, the building of a house and dealing with construction workers and the registration office is a highly relatable scenario for most NRI Malayali people.

While Vinod is struggling with this on one hand, Pappettan is struggling to find a suitable bride because he is a ‘boomer’ who has traditional notions about how a woman should be and ends up getting rejected most often. However, stereotypes are still part of the series where women are concerned and that’s disappointing given that Gouri is projected as a modern girl who wants her own space away from her controlling parents. The tumultuous relationship between Vinod and Gouri also shows the challenges that couples of today face, especially when it comes to family and moving abroad in the hopes of a better life. The strained relationship between Gouri’s dad and Vinod’s dad also shows how the male ego and patriarchy come into play in situations of love and marriage. However, one wishes the director had written in some new elements for the audience where Vinod and Pappettan’s love relationships were concerned to make the series fresh. The Great Indian Kitchen, for instance, provided a deep insight into the psyche of males in society and Love Under Construction could have possibly had some shades of that to give the title more meaning.

As far as performances go, Neeraj Madhav, Aju Varghese and Gouri Kishan are effortless in their portrayals as Vinod, Pappettan and Gouri respectively. Neeraj Madhav and Aju Varghese are seasoned actors who have an impressive career graph and their interactions are very engaging in this series. The supporting characters Anand Mamadhan, Thankam Mohan and Ann Jameela Saleem, also make a mark. Music director Gopi Sundar has scored the songs and BGM and it’s par for the course. On the whole, Vishnu Raghav’s Love Under Construction is an easy watch but not the outstanding series that it could have been.