Dear Zindagi Hindi Movie Review

A character in the film quotes William Faulkner: The past is never dead. In fact, it is not even the past. (Requiem for a Nun). To borrow yet again from the film: create good memories, live good moments. So is it with the film, Gauri Shinde who takes off from the promising English Vinglish.
Kaira (Aliya Bhat) is an aspiring Cinematographer dreaming to make the grade and shoot an entire feature film. She is on the sets with Raghu (Kunal Kapoor) who obviously is smitten by her. However, she is in a relationship with Sid (Andghad Bidi). The relationship is however on the rocks when she announces that she has slept with Raghu. The film tells the many moods and shades of grey that go in the making in the life of Kaira. Since it is played by Aliya the audience knows that she is likely to carry emotional baggage and that she does. While she is the confident person willing to wear her heart on her sleeve, she is also intolerant to the Mills and Boon romance and is hoping to ride on her relationship and launch her career. In fact, she seems to say: they left me living on the rack of memory (Erich Segal). She has judged her parents – don’t most of this generation do that? She faults them for leaving her behind with her maternal grandparents while they are in search of economic stability. She lives with her friends Fatima (Ira Dubey) and Jackie (Yashwasini Dayama). She makes her emotional demands and makes clear that she is often not in sync with many a thing in and around her. She also understand that: nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch (James Baldwin). Caught in this emotionally chaotic region she is jilted by Raghu and is in a brief relationship with Rumi (Ali Zafar- in a brief but impressive outing) she is frantically in search of acceptance at home, at work and with her social circuit. She has it all, yet not. Caught in an emotional low, she runs into a head shrinker in Jug (Shah Rukh Khan) who helps her see life in the proper perspective. How she comes to terms with the emotional challenges and how she exorcises the ghosts in the dark patches of her personal life is what Gauri offers in her back to back woman centric films. Unlike the earlier one this is more raw and is thus more in sync with the times. Strangely is a slice of life moment and yet raw and often soul wrenching. It raises issues without reaching the pulpit for example it draws on how the middle-class parent is a ‘Marksist’ and expect their children to be their trophies to be placed on the show case. The hurt the bruises that the child carries through life and the burden it becomes is essayed with such awesome ease by the protagonist that you believe that casting is half the job done.
In fact, a major success in the film is the cast. We have the likes of Ira Dubey, Yashwasiini Dayamma doing a fine job. We have a fine heart-warming performance from Kunal Kapoor who has such a wonderful screen presence. He gives his role a lot of meat though the script does not. It is so nice seeing him in a film. Then there is Shahrukh Khan – believe it or not, not hamming!! Gauri Shinde joins the elite club (Ashutosh Gowarikar and Shimit Amin) who keep the star on leash. Here too Gauri Shinde pulls it off or nearly does. For a good part of the film he allows Aliya to steal the thunder. His linens are specifically worth mentioning. Some fine cinematography (Lakshman Utekar) decisively outside the clichéd Goa adds a rich texture to the narrative.
The film however truly belongs to Aliya Bhatt: the seamless shift of the various moods that is so central to the spirit of the tale finds in Alia Bhatt. An artist who with consummate ease is not only a picture perfect alibi to the calls of the script but is backed with an ability to translate without much ado the range of the emotional swing. Like a veteran, she pulls off every facet of the person: daring, yet dispirited, spirited yet melancholic, happy yet sad, angry but beaten, warm yet suspicious, outgoing but a cocooned introvert – she surveys the entire gamut and portrays every emotion in the right dose. She does not just add credibility she lifts its intensity. But then, as the psychiatrist says, life is unfair and so is the film that endlessly meanders for a good while before Shah Rukh enters the script. The film is worth watching for those who have the stomach to take issues of our times and are willing to invest thought along with time at the theatre.

Rating: 3 stars
+ Alia Bhatt
– A script that doesn’t justify 149 minutes.

L. Ravichander.