Dil Bechara Movie Review

Dil Bechara Movie Review

• The film will obviously always belong to Sushant Singh Rajput - On the money all the way, his performance demonstrates exactly why the chops he possessed were not ordinary.

Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Sanjana Sanghi, Saif Ali Khan, Swastika Mukherjee, Saswata Chatterjee and Sahil Vaid

Director: Mukesh Chhabra

• As Dil Bechara unfolds, two things bubble to the surface instantly - and poignantly. One is the realisation of the sheer enormity of the loss that Sushant Singh Rajput's untimely demise represents. This awareness is painfully heightened by the film itself.

• It rejoices in life and love in the face of impending death. The other is the gnawing feeling that the lead actor, who notched up several fine performances in a tragically brief career, perhaps deserved a more stimulating swan song. 

• Sushant Singh Rajput hits his stride from the very outset but parts of the inevitably heart-breaking Dil Bechara.The lead actor fleshes out a bubbly Jamshedpur boy who makes light of a disability caused by Cancer. 

• He draws his zest for life from his growing bond with a terminally ill girl whose lungs act up frequently. He has a false leg. Time is running out on the two but the couple is determined not to let the sense of mortality weigh them down.

Dil Bechara Movie Review

• Dil Bechara blends unaltered borrowings from the original production with significant plot deviations in the process of shaping the story for Indian sensibilities. It pulls in one direction here and then pushes in another there and ends up feeling a bit stretched at times.

• Yet, one cannot help falling in love with Rajput and debutante Sanjana Sanghi.  The more sparkling passages, infused with humour and warmth, owe their existence to the source material. Dil Bechara is a film about disease, distress and death that looks at the brighter side of life through the tears brought on by the fear and the experience of losing a loved one.

• Tatanagar takes the place of suburban Indianapolis. Kizie Basu (Sanghi) and Immanuel "Manny" Rajkumar Junior (Rajput) meet in a college fest before they drift closer to each other in a cancer support group run by Dr R.K. Jha . 

• An early dance number introduces the audience to the male protagonist's love for Rajinikanth in particular and popular movies and music in general. The girl, who lives with her parents (Swastika Mukherjee and Saswata Chatterjee), digs the work of an alternative musician who disappeared from the scene leaving her favourite song incomplete.

•  While Manny and his best pal Jagdish Pandey (Sahil Vaid), another cancer patient who is on the verge of losing his eyesight, want to make a film with Kizie as the heroine.

• Convincing the girl takes some doing, but once she is on board - Seri, okay in Tamil, is the couple's catchword - the relationship between her and Manny blossoms quickly and the two become inseparables even as Kizie's mother frets about her delicate medical condition.

• Manny, on his part, does all he can to spread good cheer in Kizie's life with his wisecracks, good-natured pranks and uninhibited ways. Together they seek to make the most of the limited time they have at their disposal. They make a trip to Paris, where Kizie's favourite singer lives. 

• In The Fault In Our Stars, the young couple's Amsterdam visit results in a disappointing meeting with the heroine's favourite writer (played by Willem Dafoe) and the recognition that he is a terribly eccentric human unworthy of being idolised. 

• In Dil Bechara, this crucial portion of the story is inexplicably glossed over. The reclusive singer Kizie adores is presented more as a man who is off his rocker than as a cynical musician battling world-weariness.

      

The Fault In Our Stars, with its disarming simplicity and youthful verve, pulled at our heartstrings with the aid of elements that were within the film's narrative scope. Dil Bechara,

•  On the other hand, will go down in cinema history not so much for what its text contains as for the fact that it brings the curtain down on the career of a talented young actor who displayed panache for creative challenges 

(witness Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, Sonchiriya and the Mahendra Singh Dhoni biopic that he owned despite never having held a cricket bat in his life until he landed the role) and revelled in carrying burdens heavier than the one Dil Bechara places on his shoulders.

• Dil Bechara, which premiered on Disney+Hotstar on Friday, is a few notches shy of the benchmark that Sushant Singh Rajput set for himself with his more accomplished films. But watch it nonetheless to celebrate a career that merited a much, much longer run.