AYE ZINDAGI
(director/writer: Anirban Bose; cinematographer: Surjodeep Ghosh; editor: Suraj Gunjal; music: Anirban Bose/Surel Ingate; cast: Revathy Revathy Rajan, hospital grief counselor), Satyajeet Dubey (Vinay Chawla), Tasneem Ali (Nurse Nusrat Ali), Hemant Kher (hospital chief), Srikant Verma (Mr. Sharma, patient’s workplace supervisor), Rishat Mahmud (Artist), Sawan Tank (Kartik Chawla), Jayesh Raj (Abhay), Nandan Rajan ( Pranjal Trivedi), Mrinmayee Godbole (Manjula Nair); Runtime: 104; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Shiladitya Bora; Platoon One Films/KDM Media; 2022-India-in Hindi, with English subtitles)
“Disease film carries a positive message but is weakly directed.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The title in Hindu translates to “life finds a way.”
The writer-director Anirban Bose is a first-time director from India, whose tearjerker disease film carries a positive message but is weakly directed. The film is set in the hospital of Hyderabad, India, from 2004 to 2014. It’s based on a true story about a middle-class 26-year-old software computer engineer, from Lucknow, Vinay Chawla (Satyajeet Dubey), who needs a liver replacement because he has liver cirrhosis.
At the hospital, he works with Revathi Ranjan (Revathy), a middle-aged married compassionate organ donation grief counselor, who arranges for families of brain dead patients to donate their organs. Her hard work gives Vijay hope of getting a life-saving liver that meets his needs. In this organ donor drama, how things turn for him forms the plotline.
The film spends time showing Vinay as he goes through different stages of the disease, and the scenes where we see Vinay filled with survivor’s guilt as he gets a liver because someone has died. But he’s an unsympathetic character who has been depicted as a tantrum throwing spoiled child over not getting his brand of ice cream.
The film lacks gravitas, and it feels like an empty feel-good film, one that exploits a good story by being so poorly directed.
After Vinay’s hospital discharge, he remains in contact with the night nurse, Manjula (Mrinmayee Godbole), and proposes–whereby she accepts. Though the nurse acts with professional integrity, he comes across as if an immature teen.
Vinay’s older brother (Sawan Tank) is a doctor who takes time off from work to visit him and make sure he’s being well-cared for. The head of the hospital (Hemant Kher) proves to be a caring administrator, who effectively takes charge of the hospital.
It’s an uneven film that failed to tell its uplifting story without having too many bungles.
REVIEWED ON 10/25/2022 GRADE: C+