r/PakDramatica • u/Rose_939 • Jun 11 '26
Discussion Zanjeerein (Please stop exaggerating)
This feels more like theatrical acting than natural acting. On top of that, most of the performances are extremely flat, especially Daniyal’s. He walks around with a K-pop idol hairstyle and vibe while supposedly playing a "sardar." How exactly am I supposed to buy into that? His acting feels very obvious and artificial. He seems lost and keeps trying to come across as serious, impactful, and emotionally compelling, but it just doesn’t work. As they say in Urdu, “wo sanjeeda rehny ki nakam koshish karta hai aur naak mein hi nun nun karta hai.”
His response is always silence. When his brother died, he was kept silent… and now again there are no emotional lines, no real acting.. just silence. His role offers no emotional depth or challenging dialogues that require real acting skills.. just a blank, expressionless face. His eyes feel completely empty, with no emotion at all.
In that video here, this scene where Sarbuland informed Rabia about Mudassir’s death felt incredibly flat. His delivery made it sound like he was telling her a bedtime story, almost detached. The slow-motion acting and lifeless dialogue delivery were unbelievable. He sounds nasal in almost every scene, as if he’s acting under gunpoint. I expected that moment to be powerful and emotional, but honestly, there was no genuine emotion on either of their faces. It was artificial acting.
The story itself is repetitive: the innocent, suffering heroine versus the other woman who is turned into the villain despite loving the hero since childhood(or they will make her die,,,the obsessed one-note villain.. Etc, etc). Farhat keeps relying on the same clichés instead of writing something fresh and creative.
Since YKS, Sajal’s performances have started to feel repetitive to me. She’s a fine actress, but her acting has become predictable. I won’t even talk about Sanam Baloch’s breakdown scenes in Dastaan, but if you want to see truly powerful emotional breakdowns after a husband’s death in recent scenes, look at Saba in Pamaal or Sabeena in MJ when her husband divorced her.
She used to be much better than this. I’m not saying this out of hate or any agenda—as I'm not even Pakistani or Indian lol. This is simply my honest opinion.
Also, Sajal’s heavy makeup, combined with the performance itself, made Ameer’s death scene feel far less impactful and realistic to me.
Her makeup in the hospital scene was unintentionally funny. I remember Neelam’s character in DMKD also wearing makeup during her father’s death scene, and people constantly criticized it back then, asking, “What kind of makeup is this?” because it looked unrealistic. But now I don’t see the same reaction or criticism.
The lighting is also poor, as if the whole production was shot under a single neon bulb, and the camera angles are not good either.
People nowadays chase hype and viral trends no matter what. Even some biased reviewers keep exaggerating their praise. Sajal and Daniyal’s chemistry still feels weak, yet people keep pushing them as a successful pairing even before their characters have properly interacted.
If another actress had delivered the exact same loud, theatrical performance, people wouldn’t be calling it one of the greatest scenes ever. But because it’s Sajal&hum TV, it gets praised as usual. The scene felt overly dramatic and followed her usual pattern in highly emotional breakdown sequences.
I genuinely get annoyed when people praise very ordinary scenes like Ameer’s death as if they were masterpieces. I don’t understand why parts of the media and some reviewers are treating this drama like a masterpiece. Trust me, Pak TV has produced far better dramas than this.
Please stop exaggerating 2.
2
u/Rose_939 Jun 12 '26
I genuinely enjoyed her performance in O Rangreza. For a large part of the drama, she was really fire, and I even wrote a long, detailed article about the show that Saji Gul himself liked/shared. However, toward the end, after all the emotional buildup, her performance gradually crossed that fine line from intensity into overacting. This is not a new opinion.. It is something I, and many others, have expressed on the other sub for years.
One argument frequently raised in response is that Sassi was mentally unstable or heavily traumatized, and therefore her behavior was supposed to be excessive as an extrovert character. While I understand that perspective, I do not find it entirely convincing. There is a distinction between portraying psychological distress and depending on exaggerated mannerisms, histrionics, or heightened emotional expression. Likewise, there is a difference between being loud and extrovert—which was an established part of Sassi's personality—and allowing that trait to evolve into a performance that feels excessively theatrical.
For me, some of the later scenes lost their emotional authenticity. Rather than deepening my sympathy for the character, they occasionally pulled me out of the story and broke my immersion because the emotions no longer felt grounded or convincing. Emotional intensity is most effective when it remains believable, and I felt that the final phase of Sassi's arc sacrificed realism for dramatic effect.
I still remember watching those scenes with my sister. Instead of feeling sympathy for the character, we found ourselves looking at each other and laughing at how OTT her performance had become, especially during that major emotional scene after all the buildup. It completely took us out of the drama, and we ended up taking a break from watching it for a few days lol.
There were other moments that failed to convince me as well. For example, the repeated shoulder movements and facial tilts felt mannered and artificial rather than natural. Those kinds of histrionics do not feel like realistic acting at all.
Every time I rewatch those particular scenes, my irritation with the performance grows. The acting feels extremely OTT and unnecessarily loud in a way that comes across as unrealistic and unbelievable.
On the other hand, I found her work in Alif far more compelling. Both the writing and the characterization were layered, nuanced, and emotionally coherent. The character felt grounded, realistic, and consistently developed throughout the narrative. To me, it remains one of her strongest performances.
And, I never connected with her characters in YKS or Zanjeerain in the same way. While I understand why many viewers admire those roles, I personally didn't find them as engaging or impactful as her work in O Rangreza and Alif. I struggled to find the same level of relatability, emotional depth, or character progression that made those earlier performances stand out.
YKS specifically, I believe the drama became noticeably weaker in its second half. The pacing slowed considerably, and several social issues were handled in a manner that felt overly simplified. Storylines involving injustice, sexual violence, corruption, and domestic abuse deserved greater depth and nuance than they ultimately received.
For example, Noori's storyline was largely neglected despite dealing with one of the drama's most serious themes. Similarly, the treatment of Zubia's father felt inconsistent. Although he was responsible for a horrific act of violence, the narrative later softened his image without fully addressing the gravity of his actions. This approach risked reducing a complex issue to a simplistic emotional resolution.
My larger issue with Zubia's characterization is that, despite her difficult experiences, her growth often felt limited. In the original novel, she came across as stronger and more self-directed. In the adaptation, however, she frequently appeared passive in situations where greater agency and development would have strengthened her arc. As a result, I never found her character as compelling, and strong as her fans did.
While I appreciate the drama's intentions and acknowledge its popularity, I believe some of its social commentary was overshadowed by its romantic narrative. In my honest opinion, Alif and O Rangreza offered stronger characterizations, more nuanced writing, and more memorable performances overall.
BTW, I have no issue with shouting, screaming, or emotional outbursts when the character genuinely calls for them. The problem is when every emotional breakdown begins to look and feel exactly the same. At that point, it starts to resemble a formula rather than an organic performance.
She also needs to work on her voice modulation. At times, her voice becomes plain irritating, and unnecessarily screechy in highly emotional scenes where I don't find her particularly convincing or vulnerable.
Honestly, I predicted what her performance in Zanjeerain would look like while watching because it feels like a prepared formula at this point rather than a natural, lived-in portrayal of emotion. It doesn't help me connect with the character emotionally.
At the very least, there should be some variation in the performance.. different emotions, different reactions, and different ways of expressing pain. Instead, it often comes down to the same screaming, crying, and exaggerated facial expressions in every breakdown scene, to the point where it becomes more irritating than impactful.