She says a lot even when she doesn’t have a line of dialogue and when she does say her lines, it seems like she just thought of those words as they were just the right thing to say at just that moment. Dear Zindagi is a triumph of Alia Bhatt. Gently aiding her is actor Shah Rukh Khan, whose first scene in the film reminded me of his star-status and I feared he would spread his arms wide yet again but thankfully, about three minutes into the scene and SRK becomes Dr Jahangir Khan (Dr Jag) whose chilled-out therapy sessions will make you look at your therapist with renewed ‘love’.
The teasers had prepped me to look for ‘how-to-live-life’ sermons from SRK to Alia but there’s just the right amount of it via dialogues in this feel-good and well-enacted film. The “Chair-Theory” is my favourite one from this good doctor’s repertoire (wink.) And then there’s this ‘awesomatic’ breakdown Kiara has in front of her parents and extended family which sort of levels the playing-field between parenting as perceived by elders and the one perceived by us kids. The compelling childhood memory described by Kiara to Dr Jag plays out as an ‘Aalia-showcase’ and man, what a performance.
Delightful character sketches spring in the necessary plot-points and they are as effective as the leads. Spoiler alert: If you’re looking for clichéd romances, you aren’t getting any. Also if you’re like me and specifically yearn for SRK and Alia’s montages set to the song Ae Zindagi Gale Lage Ley, you ain’t getting that either. I was musing on why the song was left out especially when the chair Dr Jag sits on creaks, as it does each time a person sitting on it likes someone else but finds it difficult to express it to him/her.
Gauri Shinde ticks all the basics needed for a film to be good – the writing, camera, music, cast and the seamless storytelling, all blend-in to take us into Kiara’s world where we effortlessly get pulled into each frame. ‘Hey-that’s-happened-to-me’ moments abound in the film and the soundtrack fits-in as the story moves from Mumbai to Goa, because Kiara is asked to vacate her building. Reason: She is single (and she does mingle) and her building-wallahs decide to just make it a ‘family apartment’ hereon (Sounds familiar? Yup, it is a crime to be a single-girl in India)!
And dude, do all good-looking men live only in Goa and Mumbai? Ali Zafar, Kunal Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapoor – only Fawadh Khan was missing (sob sob).
In a milieu where we make every decision based on the way we’ve been raised or on our changing perceptions, Kiara’s confusions are real and a paradigm shift in her ‘thinking’ happens when she meets Dr Jag. Would a male director have thought of writing an outline like that with a protagonist who is a ‘cameraman-woman’? Yes, that’s how a female cinematographer-friend of mine is always addressed in shooting spots.
I also couldn’t help but wonder…if the Dr Jag was not essayed by Shah Rukh Khan, would his character have been less godly and would he have ‘romanced’ Alia to the Ilayaraja number? But hey, as Dr Jag says why burden romantic love with all other possible equations one can have with many other people for e.g: burdening it with friendship, intellectual companionship and so on?
So let’s un-burden Gauri’s film of any further nitpicking. Watch Dear Zindagi with your ‘Top 5’ closest bunch of buddies and experience the film shine in your heart.