Kizie Basu (Sanjana Sanghi) is a teenager suffering from thyroid cancer living in Jamshedpur, with her father (Saswata Chatterjee) and mother (Swastika Mukherjee).
We never know anything more about the parents. There is National Geographic on TV, Lion-Lioness sex talk and laughs, ‘too-much salt’ dinner banter (what was that?), and one brief argument…and character establishment is done!
Apart from the hazily-sketched lead characters, every one seems like a prop.
Kizie is tired of a routine, dull dependent-on-oxygen-cylinder life, until Immanuel Rajkumar Junior aka Manny (Sushant Singh Rajput) literally walks in cheerful stalker-like into her life.
But there is more to it. Turns out, Manny has osteosarcoma (bone cancer), has lost a leg in the process, but is willing to fight it out to live a complete, happy life – only believable part to the Kizzy-Manny love story, the connection, common thread of a fatal, painful illness.
Manny’s cheerful spirit lights up Kizie and she eventually plans a Paris trip to visit her favourite elusive singer Abhimanyu Veer (Saif Ali Khan), whose last released song she absolutely loves. The song is overplayed though in the background score, killing its intended exclusivity.
Then Kizie has a brush with death and the Paris trip doesn’t seem like happening. How will it turn out for Kizie and Manny in the end?
Poor, disconnected take
Dil Bechara never comes together, never feels tangible or real as a wannabe uplifting romantic drama.
There is a plastic, bubble gum teen romance greeting card feel to it, despite the premise of lead characters terminally ill with cancer.
Money or the lack of it is never an issue. The families are conveniently rich enough to afford cancer treatment, this is typical Bollywood, “Let’s not get into the money making part please.”
There is a sinking, half-hearted feel to everything – right from Manny’s supposedly Rajnikanth-fan entry scene, the final moments, to Manny (kept wondering how) repeatedly sneaking up to Kizie’s room…a room full of missing subtext, detailing and logic.
Take Manny dancing to the title song out of the blue. Why is he there at the college function, who are the other students in the auditorium, why is he popular – we never get to know.
The amputated leg could have been connected to the song, to the choreography, but nothing is remotely suggested, before or after. The song is just a prop, a dream sequence feel to it, rather than real.
If you throw eggs at the balcony of a former girlfriend, you would expect a more active reaction, but nothing occurs in response, apart from a glare – it’s like they don’t mind at all, and more eggs are thrown!
So if you suffering from a terrible disease, you are allowed to throw eggs at windows, unhindered?
Poor direction – main drawback
What kept me till the end was the amazing Sushant-Sanjana chemistry – there are some brief delightful moments early on between the two, some LOL moments too, courtesy Sushant.
But the magic wanes to poor scripting overdose.
The almost-amateurish direction, poor screenplay and writing are the cancer eating away at the film.
A remake of the movie The Fault in our Stars (2014), based on the bestselling John Green book of the same name, the starkness and despair of suffering from cancer never gets through.
Dil Bechara is typically filmy, the makers never dare to get down to the messiness, except for that scene in the cinema hall showing Rajnikanth’s Kabali (2016), with a dripping nose and bloody torso, which is again lamely done.
I never believed that the lead characters even have cancer, they looked like well-dressed actors pretending to have a deadly disease, an issue with The Fault in our Stars (movie) too.
But that’s the least of the problems Dil Bechara has.
Manny’s best friend Jagdish Pandey aka JP (Sahil Vaid) is set to go blind from cancer, and dreams of making a Bhojpuri film.
We never get any scenes on why is he so brave about it, why doesn’t going blind make him awfully sad? His ‘girlfriend’ is vaguely placed in the background, like she is a ghost.
The Bhojpuri movie making scenes are another half-hearted attempt – the aloof, mechanical direction by debutant Mukesh Chhabra (established casting director) leaves a lot to be desired.
It is that kind of movie, everything is made to seem convenient and clean for the cliched teen romance to flow.
Sushant Singh Rajput’s last goodbyeÂ
The performances are a saving grace. Sushant convinces us he is Manny, that he is 23 and full of life…why his family is left dialogue-less is another mystery though.
Also, Sushant Singh Rajput’s unexpected demise seems to have left his final dubbing incomplete, his dialogues are barely heard in many scenes, not an issue with the other actors. They should have done something about that in pre-production, some tweaking, better decibel setting?
Sanjana Sanghi is superb as Kizzy, she is an actress to look out for. Her monologues are nicely done, expressions of finding love and losing it are spot on.
Swastika Mukherjee and Saswata Chatterjee are both impressive despite getting little to do, as is Sahi Vaid as JP – a character that needed way more scenes.
Dil Bechara reviewÂ
Dil Bechara never seems immediate, never up close to the characters, has some charm going for it initially. Then it hits an iceberg of indifference and slowly goes down like the Titanic did in 1912.
There is no doubt a great premise here, could see why the book worked so well, when Manny shows us his artificial leg, there is a heart-stopping moment, but that’s about it.
There are no heart-rending moments – rough, sketchy first draft, uncooked feel hangs over every scene like a smog, despite some genuinely funny moments.
A.R. Rahman’s music registers in a couple of songs, the soundtrack in its entirety is a letdown, considering Rahman’s stunning 28-year discography.
Watch Dil Bechara, if you will, for what might have been a fitting goodbye to Sushant, and a new promising talent in Sanjana Sanghi.
You may be fooled to think that getting cancer is great for eternal love, and not that bad either, and that’s the way it goes.
Pity.
