I bowed to the pressure and rewatched it last night to prepare for a review, and it is so much cuter than I remembered. More importantly, it is just BEGGING for a modern day north-south remake.

Picture it! Prithviraj is a spoiled childish son of a rich woman who wants to marry him off to a boring proper woman from their same caste. Meanwhile, Rani is a struggling single parent to her two nieces and a nephew. It’s been three months, she is barely keeping the family business going, and she can’t seem to connect with the kids. The kids run away from home and find Prithviraj at the fair also having run away from home. They become friends and the kids take him home and hide him in their room. Prithviraj ends up trapped under the bed watching Rani changing and falls in like-lust-love at first sight. He continues hiding in the house and sneaking looks at Rani, obsessing over the rich man who keeps coming around and wooing her. Finally his presence is revealed when a disgruntled employee sneaks into the house in the middle of the night and gets tangled in the confusion with the rich man who also tried to sneak in to be romantic, and Prithviraj bursts out of the room (shirtless, in my head) and gets into the fight, Rani finds out he has been staying there. She lays down the law, but Prithvi looks at her with his sad pretty eyes and tells a sob story about being a poor boy looking for work as a houseman, and she takes him in and hires him to take care of the kids. Slowly slowly, they start to fall in love. Conflict arises because the rich man holds a contract with the family business and is pressuring her to marry him. Prithvi offers to save her by getting money from his Mom, but when they go to her she tells Rani she will only give her the money if she promises not to marry Prithvi. Rani turns down the money, and instead they all work very hard and fulfill the contract. They go back to Prithvi’s mother, she finally gives her blessing, and they have a traditional south Indian wedding (Prithvi’s in the sexy wedding garb).

Or, how about this? Parvathy is a struggling single parent to her 3 nieces and nephews. Diljit Dosanjh is the protected son of a rich woman. He runs away from home, meets the kids at the fair, comes home with them. Sees Parvathy changing, falls in love, reveals himself by fighting an intruder, is hired as a houseman, slowly slowly love, evil rich man tries to force her to marry him, Diljit does tricks to end the engagement, he and Parvathy are united, his mother tries to buy Parvathy off, she refuses, they finish the contract, his mother agrees so long as they have a traditional Sikh wedding (sword!).

Or, okay, one version with the genders the same. Vijay Sethupathi is a struggling single parent to his nieces and nephews. Taapsee Pannu runs away from her rich father and meets the kids. Moves in, falls in love with Vijay when she sees him changing (sweet sweet Dad bod!), hides, fights off the sexy predatory intruder lady, reveals herself, gets hired as the maid, slowly slowly love, predatory sexy lady tries to force Vijay into marriage, Taapsee fights her off, happy ending except they need money, Vijay refuses a pay off from Taapsee’s father, fulfills the contract himself, and finally a happy ending with a northern style wedding (Vijay on a horse!).

If you have seen this movie, I assume you immediately grasp the sweet temptation of each of these versions. If you haven’t seen the movie, they won’t seem that appealing. But that’s our own fault, go watch Hum Hain Rahe Pyar Ki!