As Dil Bechara unfolds, two things come to the surface instantly and poignantly. One is an understanding of the enormous magnitude of loss that Sushant Singh Rajput's premature disappearance represents. This awareness is painfully heightened by the film itself.
He rejoices in life and love in the face of imminent death. The other is the feeling that the lead actor, who had several excellent performances in a tragically short career, perhaps deserved a more exhilarating swan song. Sushant Singh Rajput hits his stride from the start, but parts of the inevitably heartbreaking Dil Bechara could have done so with a strong emotional blast under his wings.
The lead actor develops a bubbly boy from Jamshedpur who teases a disability caused by cancer. He draws his enthusiasm for life from his growing bond with a terminally ill girl whose lungs act frequently. He has a false leg; she has to carry an oxygen cylinder. They are both running out of time, but the couple is determined not to let the feeling of mortality weigh on them.
Unusually for a Hindi movie that is a remake of a Hollywood hit, director Mukesh Chhabra's debut feature film is 20 minutes shorter than the original. There are parts in Dil Bechara where editing seems somewhat rushed, leaving bumps in its wake that undermine the flow of the film. For once, you wish you had a few extra minutes to remove the creases.
Adapted by screenwriters Shashank Khaitan and Suprotim Sengupta from The Fault in Our Stars (both John Green's book and screenplay for the 2014 Josh Boone film are recognized in the opening credits), Dil Bechara combines unaltered loans from the original production with significant deviations from the plot in the process of shaping history for Indian sensibilities. He pushes in one direction here and then he pushes in another there and he ends up feeling a little stretched at times.
However, one cannot help but fall in love with Rajput and debutant Sanjana Sanghi. They establish a living relationship. The brightest passages, infused with humor and warmth, owe their existence to the source material. Dil Bechara is a film about illness, anguish and death that analyzes the positive side of life through tears caused by fear and the experience of losing a loved one.
Tatanagar takes the place of the Indianapolis suburbs. Kizie Basu (Sanghi) and Immanuel "Manny" Rajkumar Junior (Rajput) meet at a university festival before approaching a cancer support group led by Dr. R.K. Jha (Sunit Tandon). An early dance number introduces the audience to the male lead's love for Rajinikanth in particular and popular movies and music in general.
The girl, who lives with her parents (Swastika Mukherjee and Saswata Chatterjee), digs the work of an alternative musician who disappeared from the scene, leaving her favorite song incomplete. While Manny and her best friend Jagdish Pandey (Sahil Vaid), another cancer patient who is about to lose her sight, they want to make a movie with Kizie as the heroine.
From NDTV News
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