Review of Dear Zindagi / डियर ज़िंदगी, directed by Gauri Shinde

I’m not too sure why this is happening, but lately I have been on such an Alia Bhatt movie kick. I don’t think she’s a spectacular actress, although she did kind of shine in Rocky aur Rani, but I’ve been in such a mood for her movies.

I think it’s helpful that a lot of them have been easily accessible on Netflix. In May 2024 I was spending a lot of time scrolling through Netflix in search of new things to watch after finishing my master’s thesis. Suddenly, after spending most of my free time pouring through readings and writing for graduate school, I had nothing to do at all.

So I watched a ton of movies until it was time for me to leave to South Korea for my Critical Language Scholarship. I’d heard of Dear Zindagi, as I used to write a lot of articles about Indian and Hindi cinema over at MovieWeb, and knew the basic synopsis of the movie.

When it was right in front of me one day, that was when I finally decided to just go ahead and watch it. And man, I don’t know how I procrastinated on it for so long.

Here’s my review! I’m starting to ramble, so let’s jump into it.

A struggling cinematographer confronts of the realities of her mental health with a new therapist.

In this film, Bhatt portrays Kaira, who works in Mumbai as a cinematographer. Right now, she does work with a small firm, but she has big dreams of leaving this life behind and becoming a director of her own movies. She doesn’t play well with others, unless it’s her best friends.

Things start to worsen for her when she goes to an event and then ends up sleeping with a friend, Raghuvendra. She has a childhood sweetheart she’s been dating for a while now, Sid, and when she breaks up with him, she learns that Raghuvendra is getting engaged to someone else.

To make things worse, Kaira is evicted from her apartment. Turns out the building association disagrees with the fact she is a single woman, and they want to put married couples and families in the units.

Forced to return to her parents, Kaira moves to Goa. Her depression worsens, as she has issues with them, and now her life seems like it’s falling apart at the seams.

When she realizes she has a serious problem, she recruits a new psychologist: Jug Khan. First she does it solely for her insomnia, and she heard about him through a conference. His methods aren’t standard, and while she resists them at first, she eventually opens up during their sessions.

As she heals, she starts a relationship with a musician named Rumi, but their romance is short lived. She also meets her younger brother, who is one of the few people in the world Kaira trusts. This leads her to burst out at a family gathering about her resentment at the way her family treats her, as her parents ditched her as a child at her grandparent’s home.

After that, Kaira confesses to Jug about this trauma. He tells her that she has trauma basically, and she needs to see them as people who make bad decisions sometimes, too. Kaira sees the light from this, then tries to reconcile with her parents and work on a film of her own.

Soon, Kaira’s last session with Jug occurs, and she confesses she has feelings. He denies her, and says this is normal. They hug before she leaves, and Kaira goes on to finish her short film. At the premiere, everyone she loves comes, and she finds love with a furniture designer.

Overall Thoughts

As someone who has spent way too much time recently watching Hindi movies, I found this to be refreshing. It had some takes about mental health I hadn’t seen in an Indian context, and I wasn’t too mad at it.

I did find the confession to the psychiatrist at the end to be a little questionable, as I didn’t find any sort of romantic vibes before this. It might show how Kaira latches onto someone who she thinks understands her, but I thought that it was a little bit out there and needed more context.

Regardless, I am glad I watched this! It’s not high art, but it kept me entertained for hours and I’m not mad at it.

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