We have learnt to live with Bollywood’s creative constipation, but now we must also get used to Bollywood not just picking up vile Hollywood scripts that resulted in vile Hollywood films, but also adding their two bits to make it a full-on vile-fest.
In 2004, Nick Cassavetes took Nicholas Sparks’ novel, The Notebook, and turned it into a film because, apparently, “behind every great love is a great story” and it needs retelling.

Though Cassavetes’ The Notebook starred Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, it was a corny film about undying love that’s constantly under challenge by idiot lovers and their petulant fits. It did, however, have two-three moments that were worthy of our attention, mainly because of the talent and charm of Gosling.
Zindagi Tere Naam obviously doesn’t have Gosling. Neither does it have two moments worthy of even passing interest.
It’s clear that neither the director nor the scriptwriter of ZTN bothered reading Sparks’ book because there is no attempt to explore the deep distress felt by an ageing man who loses his beloved wife to alzheimer’s everyday: He copes with this daily tragedy with warm doggedness — he takes up a room next to hers in an old age home and reads her their love story everyday, waiting for those few moments when she’ll recognise him before returning to her lonely world where she has no memories, no one to call her own.

Ashu Trikha’s ZTN copies The Notebook scene by scene, ventriloquising lines and expressions, and successfully crushing all sense and sensibility.
The film is split between the present and the past: The present is in an old age home somewhere in the hills, and stars Mithun Chakraborty and Ranjeeta; the past is in Dalhousie, and is cursed by the hamming talents of Aseem Ali Khan, Priyanka Mehta and Ashish Sharma.
In the present, Mithun reads his love story to Ranjeeta, who looks neither lost, nor confused, just irritated. This story is about the past, about Sidharth (Aseem Ali Khan) and Anjali (Priyanka Mehta).
Anjali was a Chandigarh girl, daughter of a successful businessman (Dalip Tahil) and a mean mom (Supriya Karnik). She comes to Dalhousie for the holidays. In Dalhousie lives Sidharth, a simple boy, almost Tarzan like, who plays with his hair and chops wood for his father (Sharat Saxena) who makes violins.
Sid sees Anjali and decides to impress her by jumping into a river that only throws out cold, frigid bodies. But Sid survived, despite the shrill screams and howling of Anjali & Co.
An aside: Nothing in this flashback suggests that we are in the past. The boys and girls dress up like all sartorially challenged youngsters do today. Their courtship and constant whinging, however, is passe and irksome. So is their dialogue-bazi about janooni pyaar and pagalpan.
Anyway, there are many obstacles in love — Sid is poor, Anjali is rich. His father is benign, her mom is malevolent. Lovers get separated, but they yearn to be together. She expresses her sorrow by walking around Chandigarh aimlessly, and he by writing her a letter everyday for a year. He could have called her, on her landline, but decides not to, just so he can prolong our agony. She doesn’t get the letters, so she decides to hook up with Vishal (Ashish Sharma), rich uncle’s rich son. But before her sagaai...

Zindagi Tere Naam expects us to be excited about the fact that Mithun and Ranjeeta are back together on screen after decades. Huh? I remember seeing them together, but I don’t recall any thrill.
ZTN is a terrible film and nothing in the past or the present can redeem it. Director Ashu Trikha, who earlier tortured us with Deewaanapan (Arjun Rampal and Dia Mirza), doesn’t spare any trick in the Book of Tortures this time either. Loud background moaning ensues every time the lovers are sad, and this is followed by a qawwali by the Tone-Deaf Brothers. All this screaming and moping about is made worse by direction that’s singular in its lack of interest in the goings-on in front of the camera.
ZTN could have been somewhat fixed on the editing table, but no one seems to have bothered to edit it. It leaps from one scene to another on sudden whim. Consider this: Sid has just been fished out of a deadly river and is being pumped and caresses back to life by a very worried Anjali. He opens his eyes and pouts to ask, “Mujhse friendship karogi?” Cut to Dia Mirza with a disturbing bouffant dancing an item number. That Ms Mirza can’t dance or inspire wild thoughts only makes our suffering more intense.