New Delhi, June 6 -- There was a moment while watching Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai when I realised I was no longer watching a comedy. I was watching a time capsule desperately trying to convince itself that nothing has changed.

The film, directed by veteran filmmaker David Dhawan, arrives with all the ingredients of a classic 1990s Bollywood farce: mistaken identities, romantic deception, exaggerated performances, family chaos, and a hero who lies his way from one disaster to another. On paper, it sounds familiar. For audiences who grew up on films such as Biwi No 1 and Haseena Maan Jaayegi, it is clearly designed as a nostalgic throwback.

The problem is that nostalgia only works when it remembers what made the original special. Hai Ja...