Waah Zindagi is a drama movie directed by Dinesh S. Yadav and stars Sanjay Mishra, Vijay Raaz, Plabita Borthakur, Naveen Kasturia and Manoj Joshi, alongside other cast members. The movie has a runtime of around 120 minutes.
Zee5 describes the movie as:
Ashok, a farmer’s son, struggles to become an entrepreneur to win over his childhood sweetheart. Heartbroken, he joins the Make In India initiative to go against Chinese products.
– Waah Zindagi review does not contain spoilers –
Waah Zindagi is… an odd movie. It’s amusing and has a few funny moments. But then again, it’s also problematic in some portrayals and well, is about MLMs and the Make In India initiative. This is an extremely fast and messy movie. Extremely fast because everything happens at a rapid pace. Kids are married off, Ashok isn’t able to get into IIT, he meets his childhood love and joins an MLM and gets beaten up and more. It’s a never-ending stream of things happening that’s confusing and, after a bit, annoying.
Waah Zindagi is a surface-level film. It’s mostly about just how unlucky Ashok has been since he was a kid as well as “China Bad!”. Stories come and go like my will to live and it’s relentless with no end in sight. And then it turns into a vendetta against Chinese companies and an extremely lengthy portion about MLMs and how Ashok gets sucked into it. I don’t know how the American MLM company is connected to the Chinese tile company, but it’s probably there somewhere.
For two hours something ludicrous or the other happens and we are left to sit there and take it as a joke. It’s not my brand of comedy though and I doubt it’s anyone’s. Apart from the comedy, random characters give random advice that is neither appreciated nor done very well. Since it happens too many times, it loses its charm and impact and turns into just another annoying scene. Ashok gives one too many speeches which just bog the runtime down so badly.
Also, there’s this scene where a Chinese businessman tells a group of Indian audience that “you Indians try to compete with us but China is inevitable” or some iteration of that. The level of xenophobia is glaring but really, who speaks like this? But thank god for Ashok’s moving speech, you know?
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I also don’t understand Reena’s role in all of this. Like, what is she supposed to be in this movie? She has no contribution other than being Ashok’s “wife” or a bargaining chip that people can just throw around. The men around her think that they can just take her and move her around like some pawn piece. She has no life of her own other than finding and being with Ashok. She goes to college, but we never see her wanting to do something with her life.
Performances are fine, although a bit awkward. Vijay Raaz is the most interesting character of the lot, at least his character is grey. Naveen Kasturia and Plabita Borthakur are mostly fine, but both their characters were so annoying that I couldn’t help but despise them by the end.
Summing up: Waah Zindagi
Waah Zindagi tries to be a slice-of-life movie about Ashok’s life from when he was a child to adulthood. However, in order to push in too many things in 2 hours, it does too much, making it confusing and rather annoying. Everything happens, but also nothing at all. It’s an endless stream of mindless information that doesn’t make much sense. There are some funny moments but they run out fast, leaving a sour taste in the mouth.
Waah Zindagi is streaming on Zee5.
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