ZNMD is perhaps 15 minutes overlong, espcially towards the end when the Abhay-Kalki track becomes a bit clumsy. And it also lacks the energy of Dil Chahta Hai. Perhaps it is Spain that dictates the laidback pace of the film.

Watch ZINDAGI NA MILEGI DOBARA to fall in love with zindagi (life) all over again!

Although the movie isn’t a fresh and entirely original concept, it very much leaves you wanting to let go of your inhibitions, throw away your doubts, and face your fears but, most of all, it makes you want to LIVE… because you only live once. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara!

So fixated is the film on trying to appear ‘cool’, even ‘minty-fresh,’ that the emotional connects all seem like afterthoughts. Especially the flashback each boy has, and their subsequent, convenient epiphany. It’s all so surfacial and unnecessary, even when well-performed, like the moment between Naseeruddin Shah and Farhan, when the latter is finally allowed to drop the forced grin and cry like he does best.

Director Zoya Akhtar follows up Luck By Chance with another sensitive and entertaining study of people, even as she gives Bollywood it’s first full blown contemporary road movie.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara does exude pronounced traces of the spirit of Dil Chahta Hai, but its essential rhythm is its own, stemming from the dynamics of a full-fledged road movie shot through with intelligence, emotion and, above all, humanism.

ZNMD is designed as a feel-good bromance. Arjun (Roshan) is a broker with a plush three bed-roomed house in London, who leads a frenetic deal-making, yen-and-pounds-and-dollar-collecting life. Imran (Akhtar) is a copywriter who writes poetry. Kabir (Deol) is the wealthy scion of a construction firm, whose engagement to uptight interior designer Natasha (Koechlin) sets the three friends on a road-trip to Spain.

For those (which, I assume, is a lot of us), who may not be able to afford a holiday in Spain for any time soon, go catch ZNMD for good performances, music, Spain and of course, Farhan Akhtar in his element.

After ‘Dil Chahta Hai,’ ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ is an interesting take on Indian men, which dwells upon their psyche. Do watch this film!

On the whole, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is a film for the multiplexes, the city-based audiences and the youngsters. However, it doesn’t have much for the masses, the single-screen cinema audiences and for the public in small centres. Considering its high price, it will not be able to make profits even though the youth and the city audiences will give it the thumbs up.

It proves that Zoya Akhtar has a unique, compelling voice and unlike many of her contemporaries, she actually respects that a cinema audience can be both intelligent and mature.

On the whole, ZINDAGI NA MILEGI DOBARA has its share of plusses and minuses, highs and lows. It’s definitely not for ardent fans of kitsch or those with an appetite for typical masala entertainers. This one’s more for spectators with refined tastes and sensibilities. It’s a film for a more evolved, mature and cinema-literate audience that’s geared up to embrace and support newer genres of cinema.

While entertaining her audiences throughout, the writer-director, with a firm voice of her own, still manages to keep things artistic, without its pretensions; a lot of times, even poetic, literally, with profound poetry on love and life that you wish to hear again: “Aankhon mein hairaaniyan lekar chal rahe ho? Toh zinda ho. (You still walk with amazement in your eyes? You’re alive).” This is rare.