Ziddi Ishq Review: A Super Nonsensical Mess That Makes You Question Your Life Choices

Ziddi Ishq Review: In love with her tuition teacher, Mehul goes on a path of vengeance when his beloved Shekhar da commits suicide following a molestation allegation, revealing a truly horrifying secret underneath.

The series has 7 episodes, each with a runtime of around 30 minutes. This is the official remake of the 2019 movie Parineeta (পরিণীতা), starring Subhashree Ganguly and Ritwick Chakraborty in lead roles.

Ziddi Ishq Review

Hotstar series Ziddi Ishq takes Parineeta‘s story and stretches it to its maximum, adding some Bollywood masala to a simple revenge story surrounding an innocent childhood crush that turns into something more. The series turns Aaditi Phohankar into some sort of a derranged stalker as she acts erratically and slaps her boss after being overtaken by emotions.

I understand her quest for revenge and to get to the truth, but Mehul is almost scary as the protagonist, and she feels crazed for Shekhar instead of being in an innocent sort of love. I don’t think this is Aaditi Phohankar’s fault, and, as I mentioned previously, Mehul’s character is exaggerated in this series to astronomical proportions. You don’t find her revenge to make sense, because you don’t understand her relationship with Shekhar.

Moreover, I think one of the biggest problems of the series is that it introduces some crazy scenarios that are not only unnecessary but also clearly added to pad the runtime. It’s so blatant that you can’t help but roll your eyes as it gives the impression of something grand but ends up being nothing. Several situations arise throughout the series that increase our expectations but end up being nothing, which left me feeling rather annoyed and destroyed any tension that one might feel.

On that note, this series is absolutely ridiculous and unbelievable. The way it escalates an already dramatic situation to unnecessary heights is completely insane and makes you feel furious after a while. The series showcases some of these conflicts with such dramatic flair that it takes away from the seriousness of the core story and makes it hilariously unhinged. There is no subtlety, and neither does it do a good job of putting its point across clearly and concisely.

In the end, Shekhar’s character is turned into just an excuse to go all out with the action and the drama, and the masala takes away from an innocent love story turned revenge saga into a ridiculous farce that is neither thrilling nor entertaining. The biggest problem is that nothing about this story is believable. At points, Mehul fights bad guys like she’s a super agent who has been doing all this her whole life.

I find it insulting that we go to such lengths with the story that is clearly added to make it attract eyes, regardless of what happens to the story. I think you question your life choices in the scene where Mehul uses a CGI trishool to kill the bad guy, and it’s just so unbelievably stupid that it makes you look at yourself differently.

Aaditi Pohankar is fine as Mehul, although her character feels unhinged and without any vulnerability most of the time. You don’t relate to her character, and thus her it doesn’t leave any impact. Sumeet Vyas plays the big baddie in this show and has almost no role other than being lecherous. Chattopadhyay plays the intellectual Shekhar da well, but this has been his patent character for quite some time, so I am not surprised. Everyone else is fine as well; most of these are Bengali actors who seemingly live normal Bengali lives but speak in Hindi. I mean, it just makes things even more unbelievable, but I get that this is a Hindi remake, so… it makes sense, I guess.

Final Thoughts

Ziddi Ishq is nonsensical and makes you confused about how far the story will go to get as many eyeballs on it as possible. It’s not only unbelievable, but the characters have no depth or vulnerability to them to make us root for their journey. And the less we talk about that journey, the better!

What are your thoughts on Ziddi Ishq? Let us know in the comments below!