Singapore Reviews ‘DEAR ZINDAGI’..! With a Podcast..!

A film that has got mixed responses..! Click to hear …& u can also read on..!

Yet, lovable, relatable…& a lot more..summed up well by our resident columnist Neeraj..!

To sum up in one word, Dear Zindagi is a commercially made film, for mental health awareness. But then is there more to the film? Well of course.

The film has so much more to it, that it can be called as a magical piece of art. Why you ask?

Because Gauri Shinde is a unique Writer/Director who takes up simple and straightforward stories and turns them into a complex artistic piece of advanced filmmaking.

‘Dear Zindagi’ is a simple and highly predictable story of a troubled girl who takes the help of a psychologist to help her out with her life issues. But Gauri has created an artwork out of this story by playing it out in the most unexpected locations, settings and situations.

The movie makes you cry and laugh and jump on your seats at times, even without a single clichéd emotional rant or a single plot twist. The whole movie explores the intricacies of human relationships from the perspective of an unusual teenager played by Alia Bhatt.

Now that I have come to Alia’s topic, I would like to point out the coincidence (or maybe lots of money and some influence) that the very girl who was ridiculed for the absence of brain on the social media, plays a role in a film, that has everything to do with the brain. To add to that Alia Bhatt has done such a wonderfully brilliant job with the role. It almost feels like either the role was specifically cut out for her or else she was specifically created by the creator to fit that role. But then let us give her some credit and accept the fact that the girl who was once a social-media sensation for reasons otherwise, will now become a media sensation for sensational acting skills. A loud round of applause for here to play such a complex character at such a young age and nail it.

Of course, she was supported the best with her co-actor, none other than ShahRukh Khan. I read on the social-media feeds that ShahRukh was just ShahRukh in the film. But I beg to differ. It is impossible for him to be just ShahRukh when he is playing a non-romantic character that is just as old as he is in real life. Instead of spreading his wings and confessing love for a girl that is his daughters age, he gives her advice like a friendly father figure in the film.

Dear Zindagi is a film where both Alia and ShahRukh prove that regardless of their personal lives and their ridiculous past movies, they are indeed very good actors. Now no one wants to miss watching that right?

The film is highly relatable to all teenagers, youngsters, parents and therapists and all of them can learn something from this movie when they leave the theatres. The subtly placed, deeply intellectual dialogues, playfully delivered through fun and laughter filled moments make sure that you do learn a lot before you leave.

I just don’t understand why they did not inculcate the same subtlety with product placement. I mean no film should be as obvious, in promoting the sponsors as this film. When would they understand that obvious product placements drive customers away from products as well as movies?

I would now sum up for real and say that Dear Zindagi is a must watch for all the above reasons and for many other reasons that my limited intellect would have missed. So, what are you waiting for, go book the tickets…

Neeraj Karandikar.