Love stories must return to Bollywood. In an era of toxic masculinity and mind-numbing violence that dominate the box office today, the soothing familiarity of the romantic films of the late ’90s and early 2000s seems like an inviting proposition. Additionally, a millennial like me would want Dharma Productions to support this cause along with Yash Raj Films for simply having set romance ideals through their films. I could sense that from my smile when the opening credits of Chand Mera Dil flashed Karan Johar’s name. The floodgates of movie memories opened until the last slate revealed the director’s name: Vivek Soni. Could he do a decent romance, never mind cult-worthy?
Chand Mera Dil is a full-on romantic drama, and it starts its love story from the first frame itself. Aarav (Lakshya) and Chandni (Ananya Panday) are a match made in heaven. They meet at a top-tier engineering college in Hyderabad. The couple has basic differences of gender, backgrounds, and hormones, but the chemistry is instant, and the actors seem to care. You want to leave the hall with an ache in your heart and maybe even a few happy tears, like Saiyaara last year.
Somehow, Vivek Soni’s film, written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, Akshat Ghildial, and Tushar Paranjape, wants to be too many things at once. It wishes to be a “realistic” boy-meets-girl romance but cannot let go of the characteristic Dharma gloss and designer spaces that would have worked perfectly in a different kind of film. Chand Mera Dil wants to stay true to the Gen-Z way of life, yet its dialogues are loaded with Urdu and chaste Hindi.
I won’t blame Ananya Panday when she pronounces “dhuan” as “dua” and her “safar” sounds a bit like “suffer.” Chandni, despite a retro name, is still a twenty-something girl from a cosmopolitan city like Delhi. She wouldn’t talk like that.
Speaking of its pluses, it is Lakshya and Panday who makes sure those two-and-a-half-odd hours do not induce a migraine. You never feel like taking your eyes off the screen because the actors are gorgeous to look at, and a sheen of sincerity shines through their performances. Sachin-Jigar’s soundtrack is soulful and conveys much of what the screenplay and dialogues fail to express. It may not belong to the soul-stirring category, but the songs stand out for their homogenous soundscape, making the original score work even better. Lastly, I was eternally grateful to the makers and the composer duo for not remixing R D Burman’s iconic ‘Chand Mera Dil, Chandni Ho Tum‘. Thank you, once again.
The primary catastrophe begins with an overenthusiastic DOP, Debojeet Ray, and production designer Aparna Sud, who make the entire setup feel so artificial and overly curated that it becomes impossible to treat Aarav and Chandni’s issues as real. The whole film is drenched in soft lighting falling endlessly on the characters’ faces. It is as if every character in Chand Mera Dil has been imagined as a Mani Ratnam heroine. No, a handsome and benevolent (male) boss need not necessarily look ethereal at all times.
Yes, pretty people living in gorgeous spaces can also have problems. But do they wear colour-coordinated outfits while standing inside a glamorously lit room with a pink aquarium designed to resemble a seedy bar? This is Chand Mera Dil’s most important scene, yet the obsessive fixation with external paraphernalia repeats itself so often that you quickly begin spotting the flaws in its perplexing screenplay.
The handheld camera, too, won’t quit moving. The scene demanded poise, pauses, and poignant reaction shots – the kind of drama that was seen in the Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna confrontation between Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta, where they argue over “kaamyaabi“.
The finale, which could have had some impact, falls victim to the same syndrome. Instead of embracing minimalism, Chand Mera Dil would rather remain dressy. In what universe do hostel rooms look like that? The teal-and-cream production design is aesthetic, but what is the point when you can barely see the leads’ faces? This is not an Ashok Mehta-like play of shadows (we have seen it in Dil Ka Rishta and Chalte Chalte) to have too little light, nor is it an ode to the Dogme 95 movement. It is just a camera that shakes like a frightened kitten in strangely done-up rooms.
ALSO READ: ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’ review – French meets Sanskrit in a watchable rom-com
An equally glaring flaw is how Chandni’s part is sketched. She is styled like every Dharma heroine ever, and I had no issue with that. Even Konkona in Wake Up Sid lived in a lovely apartment and wore great clothes after fleeing her parents’ home with no money. Nobody complained. The problem here is that Chandni constantly confuses us. Throughout the film, I found my mind yelling like Himani Shivpuri: “Toh problem kya hai?” No amount of verbal gymnastics can save a protagonist who cannot articulate her thoughts.
Chand Mera Dil perhaps imagines its politics to be in the vein of Thappad, but unlike that film, we repeatedly see Aarav apologizing profusely. I constantly wished he would pull off a Kartik Aaryan-like exit from Pyaar Ka Punchnama and begin a fresh life for himself. Instead, we get a climactic twist that feels cruel. It normalizes a young man processing multiple forms of trauma alone, only for a revelation to arrive that could have made his life happier years ago.
And then there is Kevin (Paresh Pahuja). Chand Mera Dil refuses to talk about him. It would rather place three designer lamps in an intense scene that prepares him for doom. What happens to these nice-guy third wheels? Who wants to discuss Kevin’s emotional wreckage? Seriously, I want to talk.
VERDICT: ★★
For more reviews of Chand Mera Dil, head to the Film Critics Guild.
