They say one finds love when he or she least expects it. It can be at any minute. Thinking you are in love and realizing you are in love are two different things. The latter is the one when you know you’ve found love. “Love Tactics” is a Turkish romantic comedy that shows the love story of two egotists and self-proclaimed love gurus who accidentally find each other and fall in love as if it was written in their destiny.
When Two Amateur Love Experts Are Challenged
Asli is a 28-year-old fashion designer. She is successful and the face of a big fashion brand. She could be the poster girl for young, rich, and prosperous city girls. Besides her professional career, she has a hobby that she practices with a similar passion: blogging. She runs a blog on love and relationships called “Love Tactics.” She often shares advice and tactics on dating and relationships. Even her friends always go to her when there is a relationship problem. Asli is a self-proclaimed love expert, but here comes the real deal: she has never been in love herself. When one of her followers asks her if she has ever applied her love tactics to her own love life, she is intrigued. She realizes she has never done that and her friends challenge her to make a guy fall in love with her using the tactics. Ambitious Asli accepts the challenge and informs her followers as well.
Kerem is a 30-year-old advertising expert and a playboy. He is known to have one-night-stands with girls and never see them again. His friends can never imagine him falling in love with someone or someone falling for him. Kerem is too disinterested to do that. He has very prejudiced views on how to woo a woman, much like Asli has about men. When a project that he has worked hard on gets assigned to his coworker and friend, Tuna, his friend makes a bet and promises to give him his project back if he can make a girl fall in love with him. Kerem accepts the challenge because of his macho personality, which he believes can never fail to win over a woman. Two self-proclaimed love experts are about to cross paths to create a fake love story. What will their ego-driven love story turn out to be?
How Do Asli & Kerem Fall In Their Own Trap?
Asli and Kerem are attending the same party and are looking for a target. While Asli and her friends are looking for an easy target, they see Kerem checking Asli out. Kerem’s friends have chosen Asli for him to woo and make her fall in love with him. Their game of love tactics starts with Kerem casually flirting with Asli and her calling every move of his cliché. Their next move is a planned coincidence. Though their planned coincidence fails, an absolute coincidence makes them meet again.
They coincidentally meet while leaving a corporate party and have dinner together. Kerem uses his tried and proven tactics to impress Asli, but she knows them too well and makes fun of him for using them on her. The coincidences don’t stop, and they end up going to Kerem’s childhood home in Cappadocia. Asli sees a different side of Kerem in his hometown than what she has seen as a city playboy. He has genuine relationships with people he loves there. She also gets to know the tragic story of losing his parents. Kerem’s mom left him and his father when he was quite young, and soon after, his father also passed away, leaving him on his own. Kerem lacked the presence of love in his life while growing up. His mom didn’t come for him even after his father passed away, and he still holds a pitiful grudge against her for that.
Asli realizes that she is too judgmental of Kerem. She saw him through the glasses of stereotypical bias. Unknowingly, she is breaking away from her own beliefs. Kerem is making her change the way she looks at guys. For Kerem, it is the first time he has shared his very personal life with a girl. After realizing how invested they have gotten in each other in a short span of time, they hold back from making a move. As they get to know each other more, they have started to feel something they haven’t felt before. They don’t understand that feeling. Maybe they are falling in love, but will they understand and accept it? Their task was to make the other fall in love rather than for themselves.
‘Love Tactics’ Ending, Explained
After their trip back from Cappadocia, it is now time to make the final move. Asli has been keeping her blog followers updated with everything and has been using the pseudonym “Mr. K” for Kerem, and with a stroke of luck, the mysterious Mr. K starts trending on the internet. Their story gets viral, and everyone is waiting to see if he will fall in love with Asli. Kerem, however, has no idea about it. He calls Asli for dinner at his place. After dinner, what was supposed to be a lovemaking session ends up becoming a deep talk session, which brings them closer than before. This time, they understand that they have fallen in love.
Kerem has accepted that he has fallen in love and confesses it to his friends. On the other hand, Asli is still confused and, while talking with friends, finds out that Kerem is the one who ghosted her friend after a one-night stand. This gives her a reason to back off from her feelings of affection. In the heat of the moment, she humiliates Kerem, on social media, and rejects his love confession. Asli is a prime example of social media controlling one’s life. She denied her real feelings because she didn’t want her “Love Guru” image to be hampered. For that, she ruined not only her but Kerem’s life as well.
Asli gets fired by her boss, who is also Kerem’s one-sided love. Kerem has to hide his face everywhere he goes because of the incident. Yet, he agrees to go with Asli’s boss to London on the condition of getting Asli her job back. Asli closes down her blog and, like a cliched and stereotypical love story, which Asli never wanted, she tries to stop Kerem from leaving. After a lot of trouble is caused, Asli and Kerem finally get together.
“Love Tactics” builds up the narrative, keeping you intrigued in the beginning but disappoints at the end. Asli and Kerem represent the younger generation of the wealthy and insincere. They are driven by their career but have given up on love. They are the physical manifestation of cliché quotes like “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you cars, clothes, etc. Just like their friends, you will also believe that they will never fall in love. However, they do, and their chemistry is good. The gradual process of them falling in love doesn’t look forced or stretched at any point. However, Asli literally cyberbullies and humiliates Kerem in front of the entire Turkey on the internet, but he is too quick to forgive her after reading a closing letter on her blog. All of this with no questions asked. The entire movie feels pretty realistic, but the end ruins it. It’s good to see a happy ending, but an ending with minimal effort doesn’t sit right with the rest of the movie. Nonetheless, “Love Tactics” is picturesque and entertaining for the most part, which makes it a decent watch.
“Love Tactics” is a 2022 Romance Drama film directed by Emre Kabakusak.
