Dil Bechara
A Romantic Tragedy in a Bollywood Style Musical
This official Bollywood adaptation of the best selling novel The Fault In Our Stars is a more dramatized and quirky take on the tragic love story in a Bollywood style musical. It marks the directorial debut of the talented character actor Mukesh Chhabra mostly known for side roles in Bollywood dramas and comedies. By unfortunate coincidence, it is also the last film of the supremely talented late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
The story revolves around Kizie, a girl suffering from thyroid cancer and Manny, a survivor of bone cancer, and how Manny lightens up Kizie’s life. The story is narrated by Kizie and takes place in the steel city of Jamshedpur. The script, screenplay, camerawork and dialogues are nice and combined with the acting performances of the talented star cast makes it an enjoyable movie. It is overall a good attempt by the debutant director but it is not a perfect product with the editing seeming to be choppy at times. But credit where it is due, the title song was nicely captured in a single take.
The biggest strength of this movie is the mesmerizing background score and the soundtrack composed by A R Rahman. Rahman seemed to be in his true element after a long time with an original Hindi soundtrack. The songs are all new, amazing and make you sway with their melody composed by Rahman and lyrics penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya. Especially the song “Main Tumhara” which forms the central theme of the entire movie. Full marks for getting the music part of the musical right. Proving that the much-criticized composer in recent times is here to stay.
Coming to the acting performances, Sushant Singh Rajput brilliantly plays the role of Immanuel Rajkumar Jr aka Manny, who is a cancer survivor and a Rajnikanth fanatic who is always up to some mischief. The debutant actress Sanjana Sanghi does a good job in her portrayal of Kizie Basu, a girl fighting cancer and a music lover. The Bengali veterans Saswata Chatterjee, best known in Hindi Cinema for his role as Bob Biswas in Kahaani, and Swastika Mukherjee portray the roles of Kizies helpless parents brilliantly. Especially Saswata who steals the show in each scene he is part of. Sahil Vaid does a good job of playing JP, Manny’s friend and his sidekick for most of the movie who is directing a Rajnikanth style action movie with Manny in lead.
Having seen the Hollywood adaptation of the novel bearing the same name as the novel earlier, there is a lot to compare between the 2 movies. Firstly, the production quality of the Hollywood version was higher than the Bollywood one. Yet I personally feel the Bollywood style musical format better suited the theme of the movie. The Bollywood version is less depressing than the Hollywood one. It is bound to make you emotional by the end with tears as well but in a good mood and the closest example I can think of for the feeling is that of Hopper’s letter at the end of the 3rd season of Stranger Things. Now given my upbringing in India and growing up watching Bollywood style musicals, I relate more to the Bollywood version than the Hollywood one. What makes the biggest difference in both the movies is the portrayal of the male protagonist in these 2. In the Hollywood version, Ansel Elgot plays the role of Gus, which is Manny’s equivalent but a more subtle character, with utmost conviction in dialogue delivery relying more on the impact of the dialogues. On the other hand, Sushant played the role so naturally that the performance seemed genuine, more real and relatable with many scenes involving portrayal of imperfections in his actions. These imperfections at first make the scenes look like bloopers or gag reel and combined with the less to no subtlety in Manny’s character make Sushant’s performance and the movie overall more enjoyable to watch. I wish we could have seen more such performances from him in the future.
The Bottom Line: I will recommend everyone to watch this movie at least once. The general prejudice of people looking at the source material combined with the fact of Sushant Singh Rajput’s sad demise is that it may be a very depressing movie. But keeping all sympathies aside, it is truly an enjoyable movie and not very depressing as perceived by many.
