NEW YORK, Nov 26 — The issues in Gauri Shinde’s sharply observed drama Dear Zindagi are suggested in its opening scene: A woman walks with her boyfriend, disgusted with his infidelity, while he pleads for forgiveness, professing his love. A director calls cut, and we realise we are watching actors on a Mumbai movie set. The young cinematographer Kaira (Alia Bhatt) suggests shooting another take, this time with the woman surreptitiously checking out a passing male bicyclist. Her director approves.

The restless, ambitious Kaira has a wandering eye of her own. Bored with her distracted boyfriend, Sid (Angad Bedi), a restaurateur, she has a fling with her colleague Raghuvendra (Kunal Kapoor). When Raghuvendra gets an exciting project in New York, he teases Kaira with the possibility of joining him on it — with the implicit understanding that it is contingent upon their continued sexual intimacy. “Hot?” she says when he praises her beauty. “Is that my only talent?” She passes on the job, but remains drawn to him.

Evicted by a landlord who distrusts unmarried renters, the workaholic Kaira retreats to her seaside hometown in Goa and her affluent parents, who fret over her lack of matrimonial prospects. Shooting a promotional video for a local businessman, she chances across Jehangir Khan (the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan), aka Jug, a laid-back psychologist (a BD, or brain doctor, as the movie puts it). Over multiple sessions, she consults him about her mixed emotions regarding Raghuvendra. Complicating matters is a handsome musician, Rumi (Ali Zafar), who serenades her yet prefers silence when he’s not expounding on early Pink Floyd.

Jug’s meetings with Kaira provide Shinde with abundant opportunities to explore philosophical issues (“zindagi” means “life”), not least the value of forgiveness and the need people can have to create unnecessary obstacles for themselves. This is a movie that drops quotations from Faulkner and Einstein, but it rarely feels pedantic or platitudinous, thanks to the breezy, assured delivery of Shah Rukh, whose unforced ease is apparent when Jug gracefully resists a misguided romantic overture from Kaira.

Shah Rukh, who has worked with female directors before, is clearly comfortable in the hands of Shinde, who also wrote the script. (This is the second feature from Shinde, who directed the acclaimed English Vinglish, from 2012.) Alia also benefits from Shinde’s guidance, transcending her starlet status in a bitter tirade against Kaira’s parents and a tearful confession to Jug.

There are sentimental threads here, including a friend’s pregnancy and a Hallmark-moment family reconciliation. But Kaira’s ultimate triumph comes not in marriage but in an independent film she has directed on her own. Her project, like Shinde’s insightful movie, is a resounding victory.

Additional information:

Dear Zindagi is not rated. It is in Hindi, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes. — The New York Times