Waah Zindagi review: Exhaustive drama of a hard-luck man who can’t catch a break

In Turtle, filmmaker Dinesh S Yadav began the story of village elder Ramkaran Chaudhary who has promised to bring water back to his village. He and his grandsons, especially the youngest Ashok, have been forced to move away after the village decree that branded him an akali (jinx).

Waah Zindagi looks at Ashok (Naveen Kasturia) and his aspiration to bring water back to the village and reunite with Rina (Plabita Borthakur), with whom he was engaged as a child. While Turtle was a more focused feature, the sequel is all over the place.

It jumps back and forth in Ashok’s life as he explains away his numerous failures. Trust me, there are many, many missteps as the naive, inept young man, with his friend Rajesh (Lalit Sharma), continues to take gamble upon gamble. He joins an ill-fated multi-level marketing scheme that doesn’t make any money, runs afoul of the royal heir Bana (Vijay Raaz), and gets thrown in jail after he goes into the tile business in Ahmedabad.

All of this moves us far, far away from his original desires; to redeem himself, his grandfather and his family’s name. From the climate crisis, this highly convoluted message asks viewers to be vocal for local in an unconvincing manner. The film’s confusing timeline is another headache, causing Waah Zindagi to get uninteresting very fast.

Waah Zindagi is also dated and looks almost like a period piece. The characters mention 2014, but Rina is seen using a calendar from 2007! At nearly 131 minutes, the film is overlong and the script written by Yadav and Ruhin is lacking at several levels. The production design is also underwhelming; only the melodious songs composed by Parag Chhabra pass muster.

Naveen Kasturia is saddled with a hapless character and despite his best efforts can’t make Ashok work. Borthakur’s Rina doesn’t get to do much except react to Ashok’s actions, while Vijay Raaz's Bana brings a little menace to the story. Mishra shows up in a special appearance.

The film ends with a message advising youngsters that "end of a relationship is not the end of life", while telling the country to buy 'make in India' to "make India proud''. It takes a circuitous route to get there, seeing as it first started out as a story about the water crisis.

Waah Zindagi is inspired by the life story of Rina and Ashok Choudhary, who is also the producer of this and Turtle. If you ended your journey with the latter, you wouldn’t miss a thing.

Waah Zindagi is now available on Zee5.