
Director: Mukesh Chhabra
Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Sanjana Sanghi, Sahil Vaid
Streaming on: Disney+ Hotstar
Stars: 3.5/5
While watching Dil Bechara you can see stories we’ve seen before, backgrounds that we haven’t. This film is the official adaptation of the book and movie ‘Fault in Our Stars.’ At the crux, it’s a love story of 2 people living in Jamshedpur, India. It shows how a girl with cancer battles her life every day with her best friend Pushvinder, her oxygen tank. Kizie, played by debutant Sanjana Sanghi, shows the daily rigmarole of her life with her family, college, hospital visits and her cancer group.
As the name suggests, Dil Bechara is meant from one heart directly to another. The film is set in a small town where Kizie Basu suffers from thyroid cancer. She lives with her oxygen tank and has one wish to fulfil. She wants to meet her favourite musician, Abhimanyu Veer who left his career incomplete. Kizie is a pragmatic girl who knows her reality and feels every day is tedious. She wants to live a normal life like how her peers do. She doesn’t play a victim card and is aware of the reality that her life could pause anywhere and anytime. Kizie does show her vulnerable sides in the first few minutes itself. She goes funerals or random people to give them a tight hug and to see what possible pain her close-ones would feel when this happens to her.
Kizie has a controlling but caring Bengali mother, who makes sure her daughter is in the pink of health. Kizie’s father comparatively chilled-out soul who wants Kizie to live her best life. The parents subside all their emotions to give their daughter a loving life.
In the middle of this, she meets Manny, played by Sushant Singh Rajput, who studies in her college. Manny’s opening shot defines his personality as a whole. He is a jovial and humorous guy who lives life king size. He is a Rajnikanth fan and leaves no chance to slide in a filmy dialogue or two.
Dil Bechara is the directorial debut of casting director Mukesh Chhabra who shows his eye for direction. He shows a promising eye for emotions but falters when it comes to the plot. This film is shot by Setu (ISC) who shows the backgrounds perfectly. Kizie’s house and Paris are both shot beautifully and his Steadicam shots of actor’s close-ups are commendable. He hits Mukesh’s brief correctly. He does not use any particular colour palette, but shows places as they are.
The adaptation from the original is done by Shashank Khaitan and Suprotim Sengupta. The get the crux of it correctly and add their own take to the story, but what they cannot capture is the origin of the emotions. The translation of the sadness from the characters get lost with the songs, production design or superficial writing. The original movie directed by Josh Boone had made every individual teary-eyed which fails to happen in the adaptation. The movie is 1 hour and 41 minutes long, hence it is fast-paced and intelligently edited by Aarif Sheikh.
The songs are captivating. The album is directed by A.R.Rahman and has the mix of groovy songs to songs that hit your heart. This secret recipe of Rahman being able to have such varied albums yet remains a mystery. A personal favourite would be ‘Taare Ginn’ sung by Shreya Ghosal and Mohit Chauhan which is a song for the slowed-down dreamy emotion. The music is heartwarming and sweet but not path-breaking.
What keeps you engrossed is the acting. Sushant Singh gets completely into the skin of the character. He can play the fun and outgoing Manny in the first half and the emotionally drained and disturbed in the second. Debutant Sanjana Sanghi is the best part of the film. She is so confident and has a screen presence which many debuts fail to in their first film. Her performance is nuanced and she is the key driver of the story. You see the entire story from her perspective and she drives every frame with a great spark.
This is Sushant’s last movie and a dialogue of his sees to mean so much now. He says “Mein bahot bade bade sapne dekhta hu lekin poora karneka mann nahi karta”( I see many big dreams but I don’t have the will to achieve them). However the story and film must be, this movie will always be a special one for all.