The movie starts with the dialogue,”Ek tha raja,ek thi rani,dono mar gaye,khatam kahani”.
Dil Bechara is adapted from John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, a Young Adult (YA) romance about two young people in very challenging circumstances. Those who have read the book, and seen the movie, know exactly what happens. Plot-wise, there are no surprises in Dil Bechara. We know that Kizie Basu (Kizie, because she was born in Zambia, and it’s a Zambian name which means someone who never lets go) and Immanuel Rajkumar Junior aka Manny, will forever be star-crossed. Both have cancer, she of the thyroid, and he of bone; both have experienced the disease for long years; both know just how fragile their lives are.
But Mukesh Chhabra’s rendition is hurried and doesn’t allow some very fundamental relationships to build, like that of Kizie and her parents, which makes her character very one-dimensional. Saswata Chatterjee and Swastika Mukherjee, who play their parts with conviction, aren’t given much to do as parents of a terminally-ill child.
It’s unfortunate that, even in 2020, Chhabra and screenwriters Shashank Khaitan and Suprotim Sengupta see this fresh material through a dated lens. Manny wooing Kizie, for instance, seems quite trope-ey: she rejects his flirtatious attempts, and he pursues and pursues and pursues some more, until she agrees. There’s no real sense of why these individuals fall for each other, especially Kizie. As if the film is insisting that we interpret annoyance as cute. Manny’s tomfoolery often falls flat. This constant dichotomy – between watching and feeling – marks and mars Dil Bechara. A ‘funny’ moment often feels contrived, a ‘romantic’ scene mundane, and a ‘deep’ moment superficial.
Sushant shows his sheen while performing on AR Rahman’s feel good tracks. When the story takes a turn in the second half, Sushant switches gear with ease and lets his subtle self take over.
Sanjana does well in her part. Since her voiceover is also leading the narrative, Kizie is ever present in Manny’s life. As the movie starts and will end with her, Sanjana’s character is more central to the storyline and given that it’s her first attempt at a full length role, the actress balances it out between evocation and understatement.
