Dear Zindagi Review and BO thread - DT Note P 60 - Page 20

Originally posted by: Resident_Evil

Has anyone (who is not a crazy ass SRK fangirl) seen the movie yet? I need unbiased reviews. Should i waste my money on this or not?

LMAO @ people posting Soni Razdan's tweets. Like what would she say? My daughter sucked in the role or how i wish my daughter didn't sign the movie.😛

Originally posted by: turqoisedress

Well, she hated it:

Dear Zindagi movie review: Alia Bhatt, Shah Rukh Khan film is a kitchen sink talkathon

Dear Zindagi movie review: Both Shah Rukh Khan and Alia Bhatt show spark but the film needed a plot to hinge the performances. Too many dialogues that say too little take the joy away from the film.

Written by Shubhra Gupta | Mumbai | Published:November 25, 2016 12:13 am

Dear Zindagi movie review: Alia Bhatt's Kaira learns life-lessons through a dishy shrink played by Shah Rukh Khan.

When we meet Kaira aka Koko (Alia Bhatt) first in Dear Zindagi, she is working. On a set. Looking at the world through a lens, constructing pretty images. We know, from her smile, and from the appreciative comments of her co-workers, that she is good at what she does.

To have a female lead presented as possessing a profession from the get-go still feel like a significant step for a Bollywood movie. And to have Kaira declare to a current love that she has had a fling with another feels nothing short of a revolution.

Right there, within a few minutes of the opening of Dear Zindagi, director Gauri Shinde has us intrigued. We want to know more about Kaira, about what makes her tick, what she wants to do, because she wants to do something, be someone.

Watch | Shah Rukh Khan and Alia Bhatt on Dear Zindagi

Dear Zindagi: Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt have answers to all the tough questions

And then, just as suddenly, the film gets becalmed. It stops moving. It becomes, instead, a sea of words, where Kaira and her besties " Ira Dubey and Yashwasini Dayama (last seen in Phobia'), and her potential romantic interests (Kunal Kapoor, Ali Zafar, Angad Bedi) " chat up a storm, in living-rooms, bars, parties, cars. And nothing happens as we get to know that the confident Kaira is actually just a sorry mess, and underneath all that bluster lives a scared little girl, dealing with childhood trauma and abandonment issues.

What could have been a solid drama with emotional heft " the qualities that made Shinde's debut English Vinglish' such an engaging watch -built upon the exploration of the fact that our adulthood is shaped by our childhood in ways we don't really understand, turns into a kitchen sink talkathon, where all the characters are given lines which are meant to be deep, but come off mostly banal and obvious.

Also read | Dear Zindagi celeb review: Bollywood says Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt film's too good

The vehicle through which, or should we say whom, Kaira learns life-lessons, is a dishy shrink played by Shah Rukh Khan. Dr Jehangir has her sit across him in a cosy room, takes her off for long walks on the beach, and teaches her that playing with waves is not just a game. It is Life Itself.

Real-life therapists might gape when they see Dr Khan brushing off rules, dimpling his way through his sessions, while giving Kaira, and us, lectures on the virtues of finding the right chair only after experimenting with several (for chair, read relationship, and roll your eyes).

More eye-rolls are caused by the dialogues which are straining to be natural, but end up being far too many saying much too little. Finally, despite Alia Bhatt's clear and present spark (she keeps disappearing into the construct of the Fragile, Vulnerable Little Girl, coming up for air only once in a while) and Shah Rukh's raffish charm (he keeps reaching out for the right 'sur', a mix of gravitas and lightness, and catches it only occasionally, letting us notice the white in his beard: hey, look, there's a superstar playing his age!), Dear Zindagi' comes off as a film which could have done with less preciousness, and more plot.

http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/dear-zindagi-movie-review-shah-rukh-khan-alia-bhatt-gauri-shinde-star-rating-4393126/

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Catch some z's, and much zest for zindagi! -- Mayank Shekhar

DON'T know whether the script's been through several redrafts, or there were too many second thoughts while shooting or editing this film. Throughout, it does seem like the filmmakers are holding back from saying something more. Or they just say it, and step back anyway, making it look ever so slightly clumsy, and patchy in parts then.

But let's get into that later.

The point of a review ( for whatever it's worth) is to set expectations ( for better or worse), rather than tell you what to do ( watch or not). Here's what you should be careful about right away " which is to not get too carried away by the cast headlining this film, chiefly Shah Rukh Khan, although Alia Bhatt, by all means, is known to experiment much with her roles anyway.

This film, at its core, is very much an indie', as it were " a very talkie/ conversational sort of feature, perhaps preachy, or overladen with gyanpatti', but mostly quiet, even indoorsy.

Sure, this is also a film about young love, which, particularly for a millennial generation signifies casual swipes on Tinder, rather than men/ women sweeping each other

off their feet, seeking passion that's intense, yet tender.

Does the premise ring true for the world we live in? Wholly. In case I'm not the one myself, have met several on Facebook/ Hinge/ Tinder, who are no different from the lead character before us. Nobody uses dating apps in this movie. Furniture shopping is the oft- used analogy. You sit on many chairs until you find the one you wish to settle for. But, how do you ever know the one in the next window won't be better? There is never an answer to that, clearly.

Does this movie sit well in the assembly line of desi romantic pictures though? Absolutely. Look back, the ' J F s lover- boy " Raj/ Rahul " sold to his generation a fantasy of there being one love, one life'. In fact, in the film, where Rahul' explicitly says so " Karan ? ohar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ( G J J I ) " he ends up with two women himself! ( ? ohar is part producer of this pic).

Post Dil Chahta Hai ( H F F G ) , the urbane, city, chocolate boy hero " usually, Sid " has looked puzzled, unable to make up his mind about love or life alike. What's the difference here? The lead character, obviously not the only one staring at the sun, is a girl. The choices before her, and therefore the confusion, are equally endless.

This movie is entirely centred on

the ever dependable ( although hardly at her best) Alia in the lead role.

One can't see what's wrong with the men she dates " posh type' ( Angad Bedi), quasi- corporate type' ( effortlessly charming Kunal Kapoor), artsy type' ( Ali Zafar) " besides that she's simply non- committal. And that she has no type'. These are all just tall men.

I don't think she can herself understand what the problem is, in order to look for a personal solution.

As you might know, Raj/ Rahul of the ' J F s, SRK, plays the Paulo Coelho variety' pop- psychologist, while he's actually a trained psychiatrist, if I'm not mistaken.

So there you go. The theme is totally relevant. The perspective, since female, is relatively unique. Alia plays a filmmaker type' herself, doing the serious grunt work " something we hardly acknowledge about women ( or men) in showbiz. This is true for the director ( Gauri Shinde) of this movie, of course.

There is a touch of semiautobiography in there.

Why do things seem slightly wishy- washy and laboriously long then? As I said before, it just appears as if the film's unable to find a point, place a nail there, and just hammer it in. Which was so not the case with Shinde's masterstroke, English Vinglish ( H F G H ) . This film, instead, touches upon a whole bundle of stuff, often only saying or suggesting it, rather than even showing it: sleep deprivation ( major urban disease), single girls being thrown out of rented apartments ( terrible urban prejudice), desis looking down upon shrinks and their visitors ( popular Indian notion), pain of a passionless heart that hardly beats, let alone breaks ( common urban affliction)... It still reads so much like a partreal, part- reflective, deeply concerned, almost cathartic, personal journal " the sorts that in school notebooks, one began with, Dear diary... Or well, Dear zindagi, as in this case. You know what? As an audience, I'd take that over anything else.

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