Notes

Dear Zindagi:
Like everyone else this is my ‘Opinion’ (in case you forget by the end, repeat ‘Opinion’ and read what it means):
About the movie:
What was good ?
Shahrukh was very good. Without him there is truly no movie. Ali zafar was good, some of the songs were good, music was not bad but nothing ground breaking. All of Aliyah’s co stars looked very good and actually gave better performance than her in my opinion, esp ‘Yashaswini Dayami’ looked very comfortable and very natural in her role - its possible she is very much like this in her own life. Even Aliyah’s family and relatives looked natural. Aliyah was ok in the 2nd half.


What was not good ?
Acting was sub par. Story had a good idea but details were all the filled with flaws. What other people found as plight of a new generation girl - i saw an ungrateful whiny self serving selfish brat. Music was ordinary. Movie was unnecessarily prolonged esp in the first half, and in all in all it was not even an entertaining watch from start to finish. It failed on all the fronts for me which the art of movie making is about and it should score at least on one of these: i) ‘entertainment’, ii) depiction and ii) ‘message’.


About the issues explored:
What was good ?
Lot of movies are trying to explore the issues specific to the new generation, the differences between the new and the old one, and the humour and agony their interaction causes for the all involved. The movie does a decent job at this i think - but its not ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ by any stretch of imagination, which was the only ‘ true’ reflection of this generation in my opinion. Some of the issues the movie touched upon which i liked were:
i) oldies expecting a certain kind of job from the newbies and considering only certain professions only as ‘worth doing’,
ii) oldies considering marriage and settling down as the all encompassing and so much to be achieved milestone in life
iii) oldies considering visiting a counsellor as something to be embarassed about
iv) people throwing young single girls out of their apartments in mumbai
v) people trying to judge others based on their private lifestyle and sex and talking about others




What was not good ?
I don’t know where to start.
The first half was totally unbearable, extremely slow and was not going anywhere. Aliya’s character generated no sympathy to me. She came out to be as selfish, self centered, bratish towards her parents who clearly looked very affectionate and caring people. How she yells at a couple in a park when she clearly was not looking where she was going as much as they were, how she was cheating on two people at a time and yet somehow feeling she was the one getting wronged, asking favours from her previous boyfriend moments before dumping him, not committing to her new boyfriend and feeling abandoned when he gave up on her. She clearly lacked insight, empathy and any sense of just behaviour expected out of a decent fair minded human being.
The movie is trying to say lot of things about the young generation very few of which was shown is what i truly admire. Like every generation ours has a lot of flaws and the movie it seemed to me as if cherry picked and showcased those because the director actually did not consider them as flaws at all (thats what i felt).
Consider the case of Aliya’s abandonment issues (actually the character she played not Aliya). She secretly hates her parents because they supposedly left her with her grand parents for one year during her very young childhood and she heard her mom say that ‘they cannot keep her with them at this moment’ and that ‘she cannot give her false hope’. What ever the child Aliya felt and mis-understood about this issue there is no way a thinking well reasoning adult cannot understand, sympathize and forgive their parents about. But she could not - why ? Because she is the same whiny selfish carefree hypocritical newbie just like all the others who gave this movie 10/10 on imdb and claimed oh how much they identified themselves with her.
This is exactly what typically gets called as ‘first world problems’, or as i like to say as ‘ameerzado ki problems’. These are the people who live their lives in first world societies, the Americans, the Europeans, or even the new generation hip ‘Mumbaikar’s, ‘Dehlites’ or ‘Bangloreans’. Who have not had to face any identifiable real world hardship but still find problems to agonize about and concoct issues to justify their shallow lifestyles. “Oh how my brother set my favorite toy on fire when i was a kid, and how when i complained to my parents who did nothing about it and promised to buy me a new one but they never did - and oh the agony of that memory, the sight of my burning toy, the sound of my laughing brother and my disinterested parents - oh the abaondonment, the pain; i cannot sleep at night; oh please help me !! so now i secretly hate my parents and my brother and i have abondonment issues, which i express by cheating on my relationships and then leaving them hanging in restaurants”. Oh give me a break !!.
This is exactly the kind of behaviour any non-insightful hedonistic person would demonstrate. Its not artificial, there are people like these all around and the film portrayed it. But its nothing to be sympathetic about, but the film makers obviously felt it was - and lot of viewers took that bait.

Or even consider the life advices Shahrukh dolt out:
i) The argument of finding the life partner is the same as trying to find the right chair - you have to try out a few or how else will you find the right one. Which is all well and fine - and its not the first time i have heard this - but just like every other time he does not explain why it has to be only one chair for life or even only one chair at a time ? And like every other time left me hanging again wondering about the half assed logic to justify some behavior which i do not say is wrong but does not mean its justifiable either. Its just a preference with no justification - thats the simplest way to look at it.
ii) Or how trying out new chairs should not make you feel dirty. Well cheating on a chair should make you feel dirty - shame on you if you don’t. What should not make you feel dirty is other people thinking that you are - but movie does not make this distinction clear and emphasis was on justifying something which was clearly a case of hedonistic self centered bad behaviour.
iii) Or how its not important to pick a difficult path just for the sake that its difficult. Yes this is good advice. Only that it did not apply to Aliya’s situation in the movie at all. She was in a dilemma not because she was thinking she has to pick the difficult path because its difficult - it was clearly called out that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for her. But you know we all in the audience are idiots - so who cares.


Final thoughts:
This is clearly an overrated movie. From the point of view of ‘art of movie making’ , ‘art of story telling’ and ‘performance’ of the actors - the movie was well short on all the fronts. The first half was unbearable to me and unnecessarily prolonged. While its amusing to watch the so called misery of these spoiled ungrateful new generation brats, its totally disturbing to see millions trying to identify themselves with them (just checkout the thumbs up reviews on imdb). Just goes on to show how deeply contemplative our new generation truly is (disclaimer: for all their faults they are still better than the generation they are leaving behind).
Sharukh khan was the only thing which kept this movie alive for me - his gyan though most of the time banal and shallow had a different point of view which i liked - even though there truly was nothing new i learned from it, it did give me a new perspective on some of the things.
Most of actors were sub-par; its disheartning to see people think that Aliya actually gave a strong performance; just goes on to say what the level of acting in our industry is and what people have come to expect from them. It should not be a surprise to anyone that an industry filled with brothers, daughters and all other kind of relatives of people of influence can actually be truly reflective of talents Indians have to offer - but it still is and that is truly truly sad. Our arts like everything else in our country thrives on low expectations, wrong priorities and a non thinking ready to follow celebrity culture. The fact is that most of the actors including the being acclaimed Aliya Bhatt and Kunal were dismal and looked absolutely artificial in the first half. Aliya did look ok in in the 2nd half though, while with Sharukh.
The story was propped up on hypocritical, unfounded principles which inspired our truly ‘dumb’-founded non thinking ‘new’ hip city generation. Well good for them. In my opinion the movie was totally ordinary and the story and issues explored though they had the right idea - they clearly did not know what they were talking about. Its the same thing i see everywhere with my peer generationals; you think you are educated but you still do not understand anything at all. In trying to point out flaws in our older generation you forget to look at the hypocrisy, selfishness and hysteria you are brewing in yourself.
Our parents were people of a generation which was bounded in beliefs and actions, this one while trying to become unbounded and free has lost its capacity to reason and is making it very hard for me to understand them or even identify myself with them. There is no consistency in their thoughts, no logic and a very wrong sense of priorities. So here i am stuck generation-less looking at them and their movies, from the outside, all bemused.