So I watched Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara over the weekend. I found the movie to be average, unlike some of my friends who really liked the movie. Parts of the movie bored me and most scenes seemed like fillers between the more laugh-worthy scenes. Maybe watching a movie in a theater does that to you - the audience reaction is strongest when an actor cracks a good joke.
I also found the movie to be a gorgeous, three hour extended advertisement for Spain. The Spanish government will doubtless felicitate Zoya Akhtar for doing yeoman's service to the Spanish tourism industry in the days to come.
The endeavor seems cliched. We've all heard it, right, all the time? Carpe Diem, seize the day, live every moment as if it were your last, yada yada...
So we're made to feel that working too hard is pointless and a waste of one's lifetime because, well, it's just work. That it may also be one's passion incidentally comes across in the character of the artist and we immediately have a contradiction. Life, on the other hand, a truly meaningful life, apparently involves doing things like witnessing nature's beauty, facing one's demons and coming to terms with that imperfect relationship one is stuck in and having no regrets. Doing things to earn a living is run-of-the-mill but doing them for oneself is apparently what matters, is what we're indirectly told through couplets scattered throughout the movie and through the medium of the artist. Work is work, silly, not life. I don't know if you felt it too, but this vague sense of being talked down to pervaded the movie.
And so, despite all the spontaneity of Farhan Akhtar and the beautiful Spanish vistas and the wonderful music in the song, Jo bhi ho so ho, I found the movie to be just average.
And yeah, the lyrics of the song don't suit the chorus (or the other way around). So this dude feels his life has changed after this moment and now he doesn't give a f&^k about what happens, right? But he's supposed to, correct? Carpe Diem and all that jazz? Nitpicking, am I?
