Film: YEH SAALI ZINDAGI
Rating: 3/5
Banners: Cine Raas Entertainment Pvt Ltd, Prakash Jha Productions
Cast: Arunoday Singh, Chitrangda Singh, Irrfan Khan, Aditi Rao Hydari, Saurabh Shukla, Sushant Singh, Vipin Sharma, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Narayanan, Vipul Gupta
Music: Nishat Khan, Abhishek Ray
Cinematography: Sachin Kumar Krishnan
Director: Sudhir Mishra
Producer: Prakash Jha
Release Date: February 4, 2011
 
Story:
A complicated yet catchy tale, the story begins with Arun (irrfan) who is in love with Priti (chitrangda), daughter of a powerful minister but then she is in love with Shyam (vipul) and their marriage also gets fixed. On the other hand, there is Kuldeep (arunoday) who is a small time gangster but he is on the edge of losing out his wife (aditi) as she is keen on walking out of him if he doesn't pull off something big. Well, Kuldeep decides to target Shyam but the twist in the story is, the engagement of Shyam-Priti is off and Kuldeep is not aware. What happens from there forms the rest of the story.
 
Presentation:
The director has come up with an interesting storyline and while the presentation was nice, the narrative was impressive. The dialogues were simple yet deep, the script was written with strength and the screenplay was tight. Background score was good but songs were not that great except for one number. Cinematography is good but was dim at few places. Editing was okay but it could have been sharp at the required places. Costumes were stylish while the art department made its presence felt. Coming to the performance, Irrfan Khan stands first with his riveting performance, he is too good. Chitrangda is a striking vision of beauty and one can keep looking at her for centuries together. Arunoday is a rising talent and he made his presence felt. Aditi Rao was sensuous. Yashpal Sharma was good, Vipul Mehta was versatile, Saurabh Shukla was superb. The others did their bit as required and added value. 
 
Conclusion:
This is one of those unconventional cinemas that takes you to the path of reality and has its own share of emotions. While the first half goes about with the elements of twists, romance and action, it is the second half which has got sentiment and though there were few drags here and there, the climax is appealing. There could be mixed reactions on that though. On the whole, the film scores on performances, storyline and technical values. This will land in profit zone for sure.
 
Bharatstudent Verdict: Gripping and twisted, can be watched