/> Directed by Robbie Grewal
Rating: **

Samay Samay ki baat hai. A few years ago Robbie Grewal made a thriller with Sushmita Sen cast as a cop and single mother tracking down a serial killer.

Swerving from gritty to gooey, Robbie does a sweet a-pout turn in this gently conceived neatly assembled and sensibly executed puppy-love tale that throws up a few endearing moments and a whole lot of actors who are mush-roomed without getting schmaltzy.

What you instantaneously like about the young school-going pairis that they are in character. Neither Ruslaan Mumtaz nor Hazel strain for effect to show they're supposed to be falling in love for the first time.

There's a natural progression to their friendship that's never braked by redundant drama and other hammy interventions.

Most refreshingly, the parents on both sides are supremely cool about the growing fondness between their offsprings. "Clean up the mess," Ruslaan's mom orders as she tucks dreamily into chocolates on the living-room sofa.

Love, if you must know,is no big deal. Live with it.

The problems—if we can call them that—come from those familiar yet exasperating ego clashes between the callow couple. He litters, she gets bitter. She likes demonstrative affection. He's embarrassed by any flow of affection, thanks to the brood of jeering friends(all played by young actors who know their 'jibe').

In getting the pulse of the pehla-pehla pure-pure feelings, this flick goes beyond Ken Ghosh's Ishq Vishq where too the pair's growing care developed under the campus stare.

MP3 is no 'stare'way to heaven. But somewhere you felt those guys were faking the cool in Ishq Vishq or even Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai. The actors, grownup and growing, in Grewal's film are naturals.

Watch the two actresses who play the young pair's respective moms. They are new to the screen and therefore welcome in the mint-fresh scheme of things.

The naughty bits among the school brats are well matched by the coochie-coochie hota hai in Paris.

What you like best about this teen-dream is its unassuming pacing. No sighs of strain in the storytelling, no quickening of the pulse, no moments that repulse.

Easy does it! ...And yes, Ruslaan Mumtaz is natural and vulnerable on camera.