Two friends Ana (Madiha Imam) and Ira (Shreya Chaudhary) mistakenly spoil a life. A lady by the name Maya (Manisha Koirala) lives in the small town of Shimla. She leads a life devoid of all or any social interactions, due to a tragedy that left her shattered. The two girls take it upon themselves to help Maya Didi out of her misery and introduce her to love. Dear Maya shows the beauty of love and life and finding oneself in a simple manner that does not keep you guessing for the theme of the story. The performances of the actors are beyond amazing and Manisha Koirala really hits it home as Maya, who is rediscovering life through the letters and the city. Manisha Koirala wasn’t used to her full potential. She did great as Maya, but Maya should have been the center of the story. The story wasn’t Maya’s, rather, Ana and Ira’s and you could watch that story right in your home on a tv screen. So why waste money? We think the director story just needed a little more but the film did not live up to its expectation.

Remember Makdee? Vishal Bhardwaj’s superbly crafted suspenseful debut, in which a ghoulish woman turns a teenager into her errand-girl? Dear Maya ditches the witchcraft element, but its first half has an unmissable similarity to the 2002 sleeper hit. The movie has a lot of honesty at its core, but loses momentum because of logistic loopholes. In spite of the irregularities, director Sunaina Bhatnagar keeps the feeling from ebbing. She’s good at extracting the right emotion even out of contrived situations. She super-sizes symbolism (red is the color of love; getting drenched in the rain is liberating; reclusive woman has caged birds, etc) and serves up a film that's sporadically sweet. Like the times when Manisha Koirala is on screen. Her talent deserves far more than a movie that is this in-your-face. Debutantes Madiha and Shreya have a good energy about them, but their stories are too plain to give them a scope to perform.Dear Maya works like a folded love-note slyly passed around a classroom: brief and heart-warming. But also obvious, in a sense that you see it coming your way.