Chand Mera Dil Review: Confused Romance

Chand Mera Dil flickers like an LED bulb in an artificial sky, sighs Mayur Sanap.

Romance Doesn’t Go As Planned In Chand Mera Dil

In Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Kabir Singh, a wise character says, ‘Suffering is personal. Let him suffer.’ That almost feels like a one-line synopsis for Chand Mera Dil.

The couple here, played by Ananya Panday and Lakshya, knows that only ‘legendary love stories’ end in tragedy. The film carries that tone, even though nothing in the story really justifies it.

Ananya is Chandni and Lakshya is Aarav. They are undergrads at an engineering college in Hyderabad, where he falls in love at first sight. A few stolen glances and 2 States-style ‘let’s study together’ sessions later, they are deep into a passionate affair.

She gets pregnant. They panic thinking of their future prospects, and decide on an abortion.

She has a sudden change of heart and decides to go ahead with having the child.

This is where Chand Mera Dil stops being a bubbly college romance and turns into a full-blown relationship drama. The tonal shift almost feels bold.

Her single mother tries to knock some sense into her: ‘Raising a child is not a part-time hobby.’ Meanwhile, his family is less subtle: ‘Engineer banne bheja tha, baap ban kar laut aaya.’

Fair point, but what’s love without a bit of poor judgement?

But we are not in 2000, and thankfully, this is not Kya Kehna.

The couple get married, she gives birth and they start raising the child independent of their families. This goes on for some time, until studies and career prospects re-enter the picture, and he starts feeling miserable.

The same gentle, loving guy suddenly snaps, and in a weak moment, reacts rather abrasively when she questions him for not doing enough. That breaks something in her, and she decides they can’t be together.

Where Chand Mera Dil Falters

The most generous thing to say about Chand Mera Dil is that it doesn’t play out like a typical Bollywood romance. For a while, it almost convinces you that it wants to explore love and relationships with some brutal honesty in its subtle subversion of the Hindi romance template.

All those hopes come crashing down the moment the film reveals its faux-emotional grittiness that only pretends to cut deep, but actually says very little. Worse, it only rambles in its pursuit of romance between the two young adults who seem more confused than passionate about each other.

It almost feels like the film is too afraid to delve deeper into the messy aspects of a relationship, so it stays on the surface.

As a result, Chand Mera Dil very much feels like a laboured take on romance that is confused about where it is going and what it wants to say. A recent Marathi film, Toh, Ti Ani Fuji, explored a similar fraught young love with far more clarity.

In comparison, this one feels synthetic in its emotional conundrum, only flickering like an LED bulb in an artificial sky instead of a real chand.

Speaking of LED bulbs, a disgruntled father (Manish Chaudhari, of course) snaps at his son saying even a bulb warranty outlasted his marriage. The sulky father and a passive-aggressive mother (a hammy Iravati Harshe) pop in exactly when you have almost forgotten they exist just to gaslight the couple further.

Director Vivek Soni, who co-writes the story with Tushar Paranjape, tries to bypass the Bollywood fairytale and shows that love can scar. A mighty ambition, especially coming from Dharma Productions, which has long fed audiences on mushy romance.

The film feels tonally very different from Soni’s earlier Meenakshi Sundareshwar and Aap Jaisa Koi, but remains in that familiar two-people-in-love territory.

Some of the visual choices are interesting. The film shifts from natural light to bold neon colours, using a magical realism-style palette that mirrors the relationship’s complexity. This is briefly lifted by a few soothing tunes from Sachin-Jigar, but it is very little to improve things overall.

Ananya-Lakshya Are Serviceable

A doe-eyed Lakshya brings the charm and vulnerability the role needs. You feel for his Aarav more than Chandni, but the film is more interested on giving him a filmi-style dard that contrasts with the grounded qualities of his character.

I have always found Ananya Panday better than many of her contemporaries, and there are brief moments here where you see that spark in her performance. But Chandni is written as a rigid character, trapped in the shadow of her parents’ failed marriage.

She comes off less like someone making a difficult choice and more like someone stubbornly committed to being right. At times, she even comes across as unreasonably harsh, stretching Aarav’s suffering for reasons that feel far too easy to resolve. I won’t be surprised if social media starts trending #JusticeForAarav.

The film points at him like he is the red flag. But she is not any less either.

Either way, warning noted: Avoid this red flag of a film.