Ruminations of a meandering mind

I dont know what to feel after watching Zindagi Na Milage Dobara..the coming of age cliche notwithstanding. Director Zoya Akhtar who showed great promise in her first outing, takes a few steps back with this one. It is not funny enough although it tries hard to be, the dialogues are not intelligent enough, the gags not good enough to linger long in memory. 10 years ago Farhan Akhtar made the quintessential DCH. ZNMD is no DCH, so lets not even compare even though comparisons seem inevitable. ZNMD has a bunch of talented lead actors but they just dont seem to be perfect in their roles, they seem contrived and unoriginal. However, this is still not a bad film, which shows the talent of Zoya, really, she can still put in some great sequences here and there and keep you engrossed. Like the one where the underwater expedition has Hrithik's character coming out in a daze and reflecting on the changes that one moment has caused, the tears carefully accentuate the feeling. And the other where Farhan's character loses all fear midway through the sky dive and on landing, the three of them rejoice at this accomplishment. And then there is Naseeruddin Shah, why cant we see more of this man in our movies. His 5 minutes cameo is absolutely brilliant. And there's also Farhan humming poems at different points in the movie, surely the best thing in ZNMD, the poetry and also because its Javed Akhtar's compositions. So you can sit through this one and some of us would want a repeat viewing, a good film but still a disappointment, considering this one's from Zoya.