The Zoya Factor Film Review

By Neha Bora

The Zoya Factor is in news nowadays do you guys know why?

Lets Find out with Filmi Files today’s post. The Zoya Factor is the story of a young woman played by Soonam Kapoor by means of her domestic drawing-room capability of luck and with the help of some very superstitious cricket players finds herself serving as the official lucky mascot of the Indian Cricket team for the world cup.

The entire film then revolves around finding out whether Zoya is in fact lucky or if in fact there is something like “luck” and if can serve as a substitute for “hard work” and “talent”.

But to be honest, the film is about Soonam Kapoor, who falls in love with a rich and famous handsome man (he also happens the captain of the Indian cricket team, modelled after Virat Kohli.) She can hardly believe her luck.

The movie has a few quirky family members on the side who don’t really have anything to do with the story what so ever. The movie ends with the couple surviving one minor speed breakers in their otherwise smooth fairytale and he audience being none the wiser (in this case about ‘luck ‘) than they were in the beginning of the film.

The film is highly inconsequential. Generally films based on novels create a sense of curiosity in the minds of the audience and make us want to read the novel (we all tried to read The Game of Thrones novels after watching the series!) but ‘The Zoya Factor’ successfully kills any such curiosity one might have had of Anuja Chauhan’s work!

Another crucial factor in the genre of rom-coms is how crisp the writing is! The humour and wit are what make or break a romantic comedy. The Zoya factor is flopping on it belly with the soggy core of its ineffective writing. The writing is bereft of endearing romantic scenes leave alone sparkling wit. Anuja Chauhan has let the writing and narration loose, the characters are cardboard cut-outs of other characters from other ineffective rom-coms. Pradhuman Singh hasn’t managed to write a single dialogue worth remember.

The only dialogues that I can remember due to their repetitive nature are clichés, be it romantic dialogues like “ek switch jala ke meri zindagi roshan kar do” or funny dialogues like “ye captain hai ya prime minister”.

In an attempt to make the story light and airy in mood, the director Abhishek Sharma, makes it insignificant in content. The film is monotonous. There seems to be a perpetual sense of make-believe during the length of the movie. Filmi Files is the place to look for top movies reviews.

The director does not give us a world authentic enough to get frustrated for its in authenticity. Even though the film had tried to replicate parts of Sachin, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and others, a trope as popuar as cricket has not to converted into excitement.

The excitement of the World Cup victory of the Indian cricket team isn’t even a fraction of the excitement of what it is in real life. Zoya’s love for Nikhil Khoda hasn’t an ounce of sincerity. Neither in its declaration nor in its redemption!

The worst part of the films isn’t the lazy dialogue writing or the dead direction, it is the acting. Sonam hasn’t after all her many years in Bollywood, managed to do a single film that I can watch without cringing.

She is painful to watch. Instead of being our main anchor to the story and the film as a whole, she breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience only to substantiate her inability to act.

She fumbles through her dialogues to the point where she conveys the message that does not understand and has never tempted to try to understand the manner of speaking of someone who isn’t her. One cannot help but think that Soonam Kapoor in lieu of the name she carries finds it unimportant to respect the art of acting.

Where women like Vidya Balan or Kangana Ranaut, and others admit that they try to find roles that will help them explore their acting further. Soonam Kapoor has taken up a challenge of her own, to do the same role, in the same story.

While there is nothing wrong with being a fashion icon or doing the bland kind of films that Kapoor seems to prefer, what feels tiring is the fact that Soonam Kapoor works to remain a fashion icon but demands the status of an actress. Salmaan Dulquer too stumbles across the film in his role as the Indian Captain, perhaps trying to find human in the papers people of the story.

Sanjay Kapoor is barely in the film and when he is there he makes no difference. The rest of the supporting cast too barely gets to act or make an impact. The music of the film too is as insignificant as the film itself. While Amitabh Bhattacharya shells out some good lyrics once in a while, this film is left bereft of it.

One can watch an enjoy the movie if one wishes to witness Soonam Kapoor’s art of dressing like an upper-class modern woman throughout occasions irrespective of the social arrangement required by the story of the film!