Happy 27th Birthday Alia! You don’t get a special post of any kind (maybe tomorrow) because I got like 4 hours of sleep last night, and the night before, and I have that kind of physical grief hangover thing. Like, I’m not upset my aunt is dead, because it happened months ago after months of sickness, but it’s still A Thing to go see her buried and clean out her house and stuff. I told you all that’s why I was taking a train trip this weekend, right? Anyway, Alia gets a discussion post instead.
Okay, two questions! What is your personal favorite Alia movie?
I’m so TORN! But I had a hard weekend, I am giving myself a break and letting myself pick two.
Dear Zindagi
Shahrukh. What more is there to say? Okay, well also it has really good performances and a good script and stuff.
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania
Better script than Dear Zindagi, not as good direction, great co-star but not quite as good as Shahrukh, better role for Alia, you see why it is SO HARD to choose?
And for the “good actor or lucky?” If I absolutely HAVE to choose, I’m gonna go with slightly more luck than talent.
Like, I think she is good, far better than most young actresses, but her rocketing to fame and stuff owes a lot more to being in the right place at the right time and picking the right roles than anything else. She came in just as the previous generation of actresses was marrying and stepping back, and there was a new batch of heroes who needed a younger heroine, and a bunch of great roles out there for just the right person to snap up. If she had been launched 5 years later, or 5 years earlier, she would be Kriti Sanon or Parineeti Chopra.
dontcallitbollywood 
My answer should be obvious. 🙂
Love to see you agree though! And I also agree that a LOT of luck is involved with her career, but she has the talent to stick around and have this big an impact.
And I think Best Alia Performance could be its own separate category. While HSKD is my favorite movie of hers by a mile, SOTY is also up there just for the sheer absurdity, lunacy, and JOY of it. But neither are her best performances. Dear Zindagi was better, also Gully Boy, and BKD even if I didn’t like that movie.
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Agree! Hmm. Maybe as Alia grows as an actress, she can take on riskier performances in less slam dunk movies? So the early films are better all around film, but her greater performances came later?
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I’ve never been particularly wowed by Alia. She’s fine. I don’t dislike her but I don’t get excited to see her either.
Honestly, the young women in the Hindi industry in general are super bland. Alia is less bland than most of them. But none of them compare with a Sai Pallavi or Anna Ben or Parvathy.
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PS, I’m sorry you had a hard time this weekend. Between personal challenges and the virus that shall remain unnamed, I’m sure it was rough.
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I second this sentiment and feel guilty I was too busy talking about Alia to mention it.
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Awww, thank you! You have been commenting all nice and distracting me, which is the best gift of all.
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Thank you! Personal challenges were the most of it, we’re selling the house my great great uncle built which has been in our family for 100 years, lots of “this is the last time I will ever go up these stairs, look out this window, smell this distinctive smell of this place”. Hits you harder than you think it will!
On the other hand, my aunt was high Episcopalian so the priest at the gravesite was all dressed up in a costume and stuff which was fascinating. Probably part the reason they dress up, makes it all feel more like a magic show and less real.
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So you are going for “luck” more than talented?
Agree about them being bland. They can’t possibly be that bland in reality, right? Like, no humans are that similar. I am assuming their personalities go through the same processing as their faces, until everything that is unique has been smoothed and tightened and made regular.
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Alia is a lot less bland when she’s with her sisters. What I do find interesting about her (much more than her acting) is the push-pull between her weird family and her seeming need to find social respectability.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9wT6RfBwXS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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Oh, YES! With Alia, we know her family so we can guess who she was before she was molded into a movie star. I’m really curious if this other Alia will reappear as she ages. That’s what happened with Pooja, perfect bright charming happy young starlet, then quit at 26 and disappeared into lady who wears flowing clothes and lives on the beach with her dogs and her artist husband. Very different from the “I just love dimpling for the cameras” 90s teen she played.
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Very sorry for you loss Margaret. I’m sure letting go of your ancestral home was tough too. 😦
My vote – Alia is quite talented but extremely well connected and very lucky. Not just the KJo connection but also getting the Highway lead for her 2nd film – it was probably like doing an intensive acting course and fast forwarded her talent dev.
Best alia performance = udta punjab
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Thank you! Luckily, I still have another ancestral home left on the other side of the family. But we didn’t actually build it, it’s not the same. Oh well.
Poor Alia! It’s her birthday, and we are all landing on “not as talented as she is cracked up to be”.
Good choice with Udta! That one and Highway were similar, but so different. And then it got to Dear Zindagi and Raazi and I felt like she was just going over the same ground again and again.
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So I sorta disagree with everyone and think that Alia is incredibly talented. In Dear Zindagi she just nailed that undefinable despair that so many young women face. They study they work, they’re talented and the world doesn’t treat them the same way it does men. Her frustration, her self-absorption, her confusion, she was FANTASTIC. SRK was good, but it wasn’t his movie. It was her movie and she kept me spellbound. I liked it even though there was no dancing! If anything I think her history is keeping people (aka the DCIB readers) from truly seeing her talent. Most of her other films, were more standard with less for the female hero to do or express, except for Gully Boy. She wasn’t the biggest part of Gully Boy, but boy did her part matter. She was great, totally imperfect and crazy and believable. I won’t necessarily see a film because she is in it, because lets face it, most films have so little for the women to do they are window dressing, but I like the films more when she is there. Actually, thinking about it, I can’t think of another young actor as talented as she is. I think Ranveer is good, but I think she’s better. Maybe it is because it is late, but I’m having a hard time thinking of truly talented young actors.
My in-laws live in a house that they built, that I helped build. Selling it would be like cutting off a couple fingers. I’m sorry.
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Disagreement! Shocking!
I forgot about Gully Boy! You are right, that was a great performance. And a character who could have felt irritating or irrational or shallow ended up being relatable. You should check out Raazi if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a really amazing performance from her and she is the center of the whole film.
And thanks for thinking of me!
On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 11:49 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m not saying she’s not talented. I think she’s incredibly talented, one of my favorite actresses out there. Her performance in Dear Zindagi blew me away and made me really take notice of her and follow her from there. But in terms of the heights she’s reached, and this quickly, her placement in society and her connections did have a lot to do with it, you can’t deny it.
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I think she’s a talented actress but also find her (or her characters) incredibly annoying. Her role in Udta Punjab made the film unwatchable for ne; her portrayal was so unrealistic–as if an abducted young woman who is raped, prostitued and hooked on heroin is going to start ordering her captors around. That may be the fault of the script and director.
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Really? I loved her character in Udta, but then I only saw the movie once, might be time to rewatch it and see how I feel.
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 1:17 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think she is lucky to have the right friends. She is not bad, but definitely not the best and some of her movies could be done better with other actresses.
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All right, another notch for “Alia as lucky not talented”!
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 9:22 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I do think Alia is incredibly talented, but also happened to get lucky and then used her luck well. However, luck is fickle and unfortunately, the very thing that helped her is what is/could hurt her. To me, she got overexposed very quickly and then got some roles that maybe should not have gone to her (Ahem Kalank I am referring to you!). Then combined with her need to fit in/ find social respectability as Alisa mentioned, is unfortunately turning people off her. But I do like her and am rooting for her.
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I’m rooting for her too! And hoping she is just going through an all around quarterlife crisis. Personally playing it safe and trying to rush to a happy ending, professionally pushing herself too hard with pressure to complete her goals instead of find fulfillment, and also (and this is VERY IMPORTANT) dressing too old.
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 11:39 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I know! It’s like she decided that she wants to dress “mature” one day. Hope she has a wonderful birthday, continues working hard and having lots of family support, and comes out of her quarterlife crisis swinging.
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My nightmare: Ranbir proposes on her birthday, taking advantage of the whole sweep of “I am now in my LATE THIRTIES!!!!” emotions to swing her towards a “yes”. It just feels like the kind of thing Ranbir would do without admitting to himself that he was doing it, right?
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 12:28 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, absolutely! And it is my nightmare too. Plus, even though he will obviously cheat on her at some point, his dad is sick, she has been there for him, his mom loves her, and I am sure there is pressure to see him “married off.” If Bhramastra is a success, I predict they will be married right after it.
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Yep, big wedding, lots of money spent on it, everyone huge smiles, within two years she’s miserable, there’s kids, she feels trapped because she doesn’t want a failed marriage like her father, struggles through, quits working to be a “good wife”, finally pulls a Dimple and walks out with her kids to move back in with her family and restart her career and have a nice mature lowkey long term relationship with someone (Sid M again?)
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 12:38 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Okay you are a mind-reader. I was literally thinking as I wrote the previous comment, “Oh Alia will be the new Dimple!” Plus, I love Sid M, so I would love that.
In contrast to your post this morning, I am attracted to Sid M on screen but I also think he would be a pretty decent boyfriend. He seems decent and normal, and also hardworking and ambitious.
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Yes! Samesies! Also, maybe we should send a message to Dimple asking her to contact Alia and save her?
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 1:00 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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