It's A Wonderful Afterlife Movie Reviews
2.5
Rajeev Masand | ibnlive.com
Gurinder Chadha's latest, ""It's A Wonderful Afterlife"" is missing the energy and the zing of her previous hit ""Bend It Like Beckham"", but it's a moderately entertaining film nonetheless thanks to some witty dialogue, and the enthusiastic performances of its two female protagonists. This serial-killer comedy stars Shabana Azmi as frustrated Southall mother Mrs Sethi, who's so desperate to see her plump daughter married thatRead full review2.5
Nikhat Kazmi | Times of India
Statutory warning: Please do not go expecting another genre-bending cinematic experience from the filmmaker who gave us Bend it Like Beckham, that gem of a film that became a Bible for almost any and every young girl aspiring to fly over the gender bind. This time round, Gurinder Chadha doesn't manage to hold up a crackling mirror to the desi experience of growing up in phoren soilRead full review2.5
Anupama Chopra | NDTV Movies
All of us know a Mrs Sethi, the affectionate, over-bearing, marriage-hungry mother that Shabana Azmi plays in It’s a Wonderful Afterlife. Your aunt, neighbour, mother, or friend’s mother might be this woman who, more than anything else in the world, wants you to ‘get settled.’ In life, these women are usually very annoying. But it is to Shabana’s credit that she never lets Mrs Sethi cross into caricature.Read full review2.5
Nishtha Bhatnagar | NewsX
Well Gurinder Chadha’s, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, is wonderful but in bits and pieces. The film is very different from the products that have been churned out of Chadha’s factory earlier, even though it uses the same setting. As she calls it, this supernatural-horror-comedy-romance, Afterlife..dabbles with the whole fear psychosis that looms large in the minds of Indian mothers, esp those who have ordinary looking daughtersRead full review2.0
Mayank Shekhar | Hindustan Times
Few Indian actors can match Shabana Azmi’s resumé . Across four decades, she’s done about 130 films, and outshone most of her contemporaries at her range itself. I suspect this must still be one of those rare films when she may have walked on to the set wondering what to do with herself. Her character is so bizarrely layered, you can at best credit her experience alone, that she doesn’t come across entirely out of sorts on the big screenRead full review2.0
Priyanka Roy | The Telegraph
Aburlesque comedy thriving on mad moments and grotesque exaggeration, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife promises too much and delivers too little. Filmed on the lines of an Ealing comedy where raucous humour meets pure silliness, this Gurinder Chadha film elicits easy laughter in parts — even the occasional belly laugh — but is unfortunately an uneven, sometimes boring, ride for the larger part of its 100 minutes of running time.Read full review2.0
Matthew Schneeberger | rediff.com
It's quite fitting that a batch of marijuana-laced pakoras drives the plot of Gurinda Chadha's It's a Wonderful Afterlife. Because, like ganja pakoras, It's a Wonderful Afterlife is surreal and bizarre, at times funny, frequently stupid and lazy, but still fundamentally a crispy, crunchy desi snack. And while it may be a bit tasty and fun, in a guilty sort of way, you know too much is bad for you, and overall you'll be left feeling sillyRead full review2.0
Tushar Joshi | Mid-Day
She sees dead people. Not in the Sixth Sense way but on a totally different level. Mrs Sethi's (Shabana) only worry is getting her fairly round daughter Roopi (Goldy) married. So much that she ends up killing those who reject the girl. The ghosts of her victims ask her to let them off purgatory by getting the girl married. Along comes a cop (Sendhil) who's is asked to court Roopi to find leads on the murders.Read full review1.0
Taran Adarsh | bollywoodhungama.com
It set me thinking as reel after reel of Gurinder Chadha's IT'S A WONDERFUL AFTERLIFE unspooled. We [the Bollywood reviewers/critics] are extremely harsh on films produced on hometurf. We go hammer and tongs after these film-makers, as if they have committed a crime that they cannot be absolved of. We tend to ridicule films, its makers, the actors in those films… in fact, just about everyone associated with those films.Read full review1.0
Komal Nahata | DNA India
Gurinder Chadha’s It’s A Wonderful Afterlife is the story of a Punjabi widow, Mrs Sethi (Shabana Azmi), who lives in London with her daughter, Roopi (Goldy Notay), and son, Jazz (Ray Panthaki). She is desperate to get Roopi married off to a suitable boy, for which several meetings with prospective grooms and their families are arranged by her, and even her friends.Read full review1.0
Minty Tejpal | Mumbai Mirror
It’s A Wonderful Afterlife is a terrible movie, and it’s difficult to imagine that it has been directed by Gurinder Chadha, who also made the delightful Bend It Like Beckham. Firstly, it is unclear just who this film is intended for, since it primarily involves an Indian community living in London, and is presented in spoken English. If it is intended for an English audience, well maybe they like this kind of humour, which I found to be puerile, forced and childish.Read full review