Unfilmy

If Taare Zameen Par was a heartfelt masterpiece that shed light on learning disabilities and touched a societal nerve, Sitare Zameen Par is its tone-deaf cousin that crashes the party, eats all the snacks and leaves nothing of value behind.

Let's call it what it is: a desperate attempt to cash in on nostalgia with none of the soul, depth or emotional intelligence of its predecessor.

Taare Zameen Par gave us Ishaan's silent struggles and Aamir Khan's portrayal of a patient, emotionally aware teacher who restored faith in the education system. In Sitare Zameen Par, Aamir Khan plays what feels like a parody of himself, a man-child whining through his midlife crisis, fumbling around with forced comedy and a script that mistakes noise for humor.

The jokes are flat, the characters are cardboard and the plot tries so hard to be uplifting that it trips over its own shoelaces. There's a jarring mismatch between the intended emotional arcs and the slapstick execution. The storytelling lacks any real tension or subtlety. Instead, it leans on loud theatrics and awkwardly stitched-together "life lessons" that feel more like WhatsApp forwards than meaningful commentary.

In short, Sitare Zameen Par is a film that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's not funny enough to be a comedy, not deep enough to be a drama and nowhere near intelligent enough to be called satire. It's a misfire from someone who once raised the bar for socially responsible cinema.

All the conversations seem very forced. Did not get to see much of Pankaj Tripathi. Also, the weekly release schedule - I do not have the energy keeping track of what happened in the previous episode. This is not 90s anymore when people tuned in to their favorite shows each week - we have thousands of choices now to binge watch and hundreds of distractions. I like courtroom dramas but this is not it. This is lame. Some of the episodes were too slow, boring and without any punch. I found myself frequently fast forwarding some scenes specially the banter between Pankaj and his wife and the girl supposedly with behavioral issues - I found her very annoying. Surveen has acted very well. Zeeshan is non-existent.

Where's the plot? What is the series about? Who is the villian? Who is the good person? Why does everyone keep changing their characters?

The sets and consumes are beautiful. Background score is also good. Mujras and dancing sequences are average.

But watching Sharmin Segal was a pain. Her face hides every single inch of emotion. When she is crying, when she is angry, when she is happy, when she is disappointed, there is just one idiotic grin on her filler-filled lips and it was annoying af. She had too much screen time and was abysmal in every way.

This series seems just like an expensive venture by SLB to relaunch this bad actress.