Dear Zindagi
Director- Gauri Shinde
Starring- Alia Bhatt, Shah Rukh Khan, Angad Bedi, Kunal Kapoor and Ali Zafar
Rating- read yaar
A friend of mine once told me that we continue reacting to this world with the same map that we created as kids. People change, situations change but we still see the world with the same emotions that dominated our growing up days; love, fear, openness, suspicion or insecurity.
Dear Zindagi thankfully taps on the same issue, alas, drags a bit too much in the telling.
Kaira (Aaliya) is trying her best to figure out relationships, without quite knowing what causes failure in most of her romantic engagements. She consults a therapist Jehangir Khan (SRK) who dissects everything from her friends, family and childhood and finally helps her deal with issues.
I loved the basic premise of the film for its subtle sensitive message on parenthood but boy the film is such a draaaaaag…in parts, especially in the first half. Speaking of first half, Kaira is painted as a badly behaved character, who is rude to her parents, unsure with her boyfriends and comes across as an arrogant kid despite her warmth towards her maid and friends. Hence it becomes a bit difficult for us to engage in a character like this.
One understands her unreasonable behavior has some history and is deep rooted in an issue but before the director comes to it, you have already dug your face the popcorn a million times and even restlessly checked your WhatsApp groups that have been kept on mute for weeks.
She also has some quirks; she is clumsy, a hoarder and likes things messy but none of these are given any context or explained.
But Alia is a fine actor. Though the first half doesn’t do justice to her spark that we often see, she nails it in a few long scenes, specially the confrontational scene with the family and an emotional scene with Shah Rukh Khan. She feels Kaira’s pain and she is so convincing when she cries. I particularly loved how she continued looking shaken after that emotional scene.
Shah Rukh Khan largely plays himself, like how he is, all mature and witty in his interviews. The only difference here is that he is interviewing Alia. I felt he lacked the empathy of a shrink and sounded more preachy than he should. I also wished the therapy scenes dug deeper into Kaira’s life and were better written. Comparing human beings with chairs put the point across but sounded a bit too juvenile and unfair.
Yashaswani Dayama plays Jackie, who is Alia’s best friend and is one of the most endearing characters and actors in the film. She brings just the right amount of fun and foil to Kaira’s character.
And then there are some serious problems in the film. It callously cracks some gay jokes; calls a gay man a lady and mixes Lebanese with Lesbians. One can see it’s done to just coax a few laughs and hence fails to humor. In fact Kaira reacts to gay jokes rather sharply, ‘Can you listen to what you all are saying? It’s all rubbish” I wondered if she also meant it for the writers.
There is also a clever reference to Alia’s glorious successful career as an actor at such a young age and the director’s debut English Vinglish and a very in your face E Bay ad!!! And yes a typical item number that has the word haseena!! Wow!! No no, the joke is not over. In the next line, it rhymes with kameena!! Two minutes pause as good writing just hit the trash can.
Also the film has some 25 climaxes. Every time I stood up thinking it was over, they would unleash another sequence on me!!! I was like, dude, I am graying, can I please go home?
We have seen Imtiaz Ali and Aamir Khan deal with the same topic in Tamasha and Taare Zameen Par but Gauri Shinde gives it her signature and links it rather well with romance. It’s painfully slow but has some beautiful moments. Definitely makes it for a good one time watch!
fByLokesh 