‘Dear Zindagi’ movie review: Fall in love with your imperfectly beautiful zindagi once more

Directed By: Gauri Shinde
Produced By: Dharma Productions, Hope Productions, Red Chillies Entertainment
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Shah Rukh Khan, Kunal Kapoor, Angad Bedi, Aditya Roy Kapur, Ira Dubey, Ali Zafar
Duration: 2 hour and 30 minutes
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 3.5/5

Here, people are messy, imperfect, beautiful. Here, love happens suddenly. Here, hope is always there, sometimes in disguise. Here, everything is worth a try. This is, zindagi. And here we are, to tell you all that is wondrous about this movie, in this ‘Dear Zindagi’ movie review.

There is this little girl Kaira (Alia Bhatt), who grows up, accompanied by a lot of emptiness, incompleteness. An aspiring film-maker, a free-spirited woman, Kaira is such a misfit for usual societal norms! She falls in love, falls out of love, finds friends, loses friends.  One day, just when she starts believing she is finally in love with her colleague Raghu (Kunal Kapoor), he is taken by another woman. This heartbreak leads her to Dr. Jahangir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), a psychologist. Rest is a story of healing and coming at peace with whatever life throws at you.

If you’ve watched Gauri Shinde’s previous flick ‘English Vinglish’, then you know what to look forward to in ‘Dear Zindagi’ as well. Shinde has got this style of hers; digging out the extraordinary colours out of the most ordinary moments. Unlike many other, she would never attempt to chop off the unpleasant moments of mistakes, weirdness, discomfort. After all, they’re what make life real. Right?

One need not tell you how good Alia Bhatt can be. But she surely shows how versatile she can be. In that term, every film explores her from a different perspective. This Alia Bhatt, dressed up as Kaira, is so familiar. She is the girl next door, or may be she is us.

Shah Rukh Khan, in an earlier interview, said he had never done such a character before. He was right. While we love how he has set a bar of romance for any other actor, this Shah Rukh Khan is different.  His character is a different one altogether, blessed with eyes to explore, a heart to feel and bags of subdued feelings. At the end, you wish you had someone like him by your side too!

Basically, ‘Dear Zindagi’ will stand out as a film, because it’s so not like a mere film. It wouldn’t draw pictures of a glossy and perfect life which is almost impossible to attain in real life. It rather shows you how you come in terms with the not-so-pleasant colours of life. It tells you that the journeys are worth, that relationships are not always named, that everything helps you for for better. That, even the most beautiful people are not here to stay forever, no matter how much you hold onto them. Why not just let life flow and embrace it?

Mental health yet remains subject to so much of stigma in India. We are neither ready to discuss on it and nor do we teach our children how to deal with the mental toll life takes on us. Familiar much? ‘Dear Zindagi’ is a heart-warming tale of an individual in search of her wellness as well.  If you’re one carrying a lot of darkness inside for a long time now, this will brighten up your day. And no, it’s no boring self-help kind of a film!

The film has been mostly shot in Goa, and thus you find the serene factor everywhere. And locations do play a very vital part here. After all, nature is the biggest healer. Amit Trivedi’s situational music adds further depth. Laxman Utekar’s cinematography is neat.
A verdict you want? Go, fall in love with ‘Dear Zindagi’ once more.

WATCH ‘DEAR ZINDAGI’ TAKE 1