Movie Review: Dil Bechara

Movie Review: ‘Dil Bechara’
Rating: 4/5
Director: Mukesh Chhabra
Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Sanjana Sanghi, Swastika Mukherjee, Saswata Chatterjee, Sahil Vaid.

Dil Bechara is an official remake of the Hollywood hit The Fault In Our Stars (2014) starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort. It’s based on John Green’s novel of the same name. It features Sushant Singh Rajput in his last starring role. The film was supposed to be released in May but due to coronavirus pandemic its release got postponed and sadly in between Sushant died by suicide. Hence the film’s release on OTT has been made all the more poignant. Follow Spotlife Asia for the latest entertainment and lifestyle news.

The initial inspiration of director Mukesh Chhabra may have been the book and the Hollywood film but Dil Bechara carries shades of Rajesh Khanna starrer Anand (1971) as well. Sushant’s character Manny is drawn on similar to Rajesh Khanna’s character Anand. Like Anand, Manny is also suffering from cancer but he has a jovial, positive outlook towards life. He makes friends easily and basically is a romantic at heart. Nothing much is indicated about his background he seems to be an ex-student of the college in which Kizie (Sanjana Sanghi) is studying in. He is quite filmi in nature and is a huge fan of Rajinikanth. His dream is to make a full-on masala film like Rajini films and he and his almost blind friend (Sahil Vaid) make use of their phones and Handycams to realise that dream. This strand has given director Mukesh Chhabra a leeway to play with the film-within-a-film motif. Which offers moments of hilarity in what’s otherwise a tearjerker.

Kizie is also suffering from cancer and has to carry an oxygen cylinder around with her everywhere. The cylinder kind of becomes a mute character in the film and is called Pushpendra. Kizie is not as full of life as Manny. She is more in tune in what’s wrong with her and has kind of accepted her destiny. To be fair to her she is also a romantic at heart and is obsessed with the song Main tumhara composed by an independent musician. The song is kind of unfinished and she keeps imagining why it is so. They do get to meet the musician in Paris — a delightful cameo by Saif Ali Khan — but Kizie is disillusioned when she actually meets her hero.

Some of the scenes remind you of Basu Chatterjee films of yore — like Manny and Kizie’s father (played by Saswata Chatterjee) bonding over the bad culinary skills of her mom (Swastika Mukherjee). Or the mother-daughter squabbles, which end in a hug and a smile. Both Saswata and Swastika are a delight to watch. They appear as real-life parents — concerned a lot for their daughter but nevertheless wishing her to have as much of a full life as possible. They give off a feel of a happily married couple as well. Both being Bongs, it helps when they start quarrelling in Bengali in between.

Sanjana Sanghi has made a delightful debut as the girl who finds love when she least expects it. She discovers life in the process and comes to realise that joy, even in small quantities, is something worth cherishing. Sushant’s character Manny, in hindsight, seems to have a doomed air around him. Maybe our reactions would have been different if he was alive. You can make out the tragic vein behind the jokes and the laughter. Sushant always got under the skin of his characters and has done so effortlessly here as well. The source material tells the story of star-crossed lovers and that feeling gets communicated in Dil Bechara as well. You want Kizie and Manny to live, to survive, to be happy in their love. To carry on smiling. Perhaps this film, with its message of positivity, of hope, of love, is the perfect swan-song from Sushant for his legion of fans.