Ten films into her career, her passionate delivery continues to be a mesmerizing centerpiece, and she gives Kaira a three-dimensionality in which the somewhat annoying nature of millennial angst is balanced with an innocence that’s impossible not to recognize.Įven Khan, accustomed to the theatrics that most Bollywood films demand, seems to know that this isn’t the place for his usual display of hammed-up emotions. The actors clarify the film’s emotions, particularly Bhatt, who remains likable even when Kaira isn’t. Going for a conversational, “slice of life” approach rather than the applause-craving dialogue of more commercial Hindi films, it refrains from forced humor or sentimentality where there are several moments in which the script does slip into maudlin or corny territory-the heated climax, for instance, or one of Kaira’s particularly painful flashbacks-it’s Bhatt and Khan who reign them in and lend them poignancy. But it’s a theme that bears repeating-especially in the context of Indian cinema-and there are several reasons it works here, beginning with Shinde’s writing, which stands out precisely because it doesn’t necessarily try to. This is hardly the first time the quirky therapist and skeptical patient relationship has been explored on screen the whole motif of “finding yourself” reeks of cliché. When described in writing, it’s difficult for the plot of “Dear Zindagi” to come off as anything but trite. But Jehangir’s methods, far from conventional, may be just what Kaira needs to finally confront a past that threatens to impede her future. So when one of her jobs leads her to the services of therapist Jehangir Khan (Khan), she books a session despite a long-standing suspicion of what she wryly refers to as “BD’s” (Brain Doctors).

Making do with thankless gigs and no sleep, Kaira is painfully aware of an impending breakdown. Disgruntled and rudderless, she reluctantly returns to the sun-soaked coasts of Goa, where little awaits apart from her parents, with whom she views any form of interaction as a dreaded chore.

Professional satisfaction is elusive, she’s inexplicably allergic to romantic commitments, and she’s getting ousted from her Mumbai apartment after her landlord decides to evict anyone single or childless. At the core of the film is Kaira (Bhatt), a talented if not cynical cinematographer suffering from a quarter-life crisis.

Dear zindagi movie cast