“Congratulations. You have become the university topper, Aarav.” This is literally the first dialogue we hear in the latest Dharma Productions film, Chand Mera Dil, when the hero receives a video call from the heroine. I mean, who explains to you what you have just achieved when they call you to congratulate? Vivek Soni, who has been creating Netflix original films, such as Meenakshi Sundareshwar and Aap Jaisa Koi, is now bringing second-screen viewing-compatible writing to the big screen with his new creation, Chand Mera Dil. With lifeless frames, superficial writing, and a climax that is so safe, this is a movie that treats a story about immature life decisions in the most immature manner possible.
Aarav and Chandni are batchmates in an Engineering college in Hyderabad. They fell in love and things sort of escalated pretty fast in their life and the couple was forced to get married against the will of their parents. What we see here are the issues that arise in this marriage as both had to juggle between responsibilities and career.
Every cinematic language needs to be reinvented at regular intervals. There was a time when Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Mohabbatein felt romantic. Then came the Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani era, where the lingo got a shift from the cheesy melodramatic ones. It’s been almost 13 years since YJHD was released, and this movie by Vivek Soni may have a drama that is more Gen Z, but the treatment they have given to the story is stuck in the early 90s. At one point towards the end of the film, Chandni tells Aarav that their love story has become a classic, and that felt like a very audacious claim for a movie that ran out of ideas after the initial burst.
There is an event that creates a unique conflict in the lives of these characters. When that is introduced to the plot, you will have a small hope that it will walk away from the conventional Dharma movie format. But to our disappointment, the movie starts to act like it is the first one to explore problems in a financially strained relationship. The way it addresses struggle is almost like how a rich South Bombay girl would address taking public transport as a low phase. The polished look of the sets of this movie is really sucking out whatever little life is left in the script. The use of green screen is evident and bad. There is one railway station romantic scene, and the quality of that greenscreen shot is alarmingly tacky. The songs are fine, considering the tone of the romance in this movie.
Ananya Pandey is getting to do a role where she is not the chatty one, and that was a big change. The pitch of the script itself is so melodramatic that it pushes the actors a little too much in terms of silent expressions to convey the emotional state. Lakshya, who has a close resemblance to Ranbir Kapoor in terms of looks and voice, is somewhat getting into the space that used to be Ranbir’s zone. And yeah, he is walking out of a wedding in this movie. In the subtler parts, he has that grace to be romantic, but the pitch to which his performance goes to depict vulnerability and turmoil does not happen gradually, and hence it was difficult to empathize with the emotional hardships of that character.
If you are a fan of the other movies of the director, Meenakshi Sundareshwar, and Aap Jaisa Koi, and also films like the recently released Do Deewane Seher Mein, I would say this one is precisely made for you to hear while you doomscroll through Instagram. I really hope the next time somebody interviews Karan Johar, and he ridicules star tantrums and praises Malayalam cinema, someone should ask him who approves scripts in Dharma. The level of drama and the trajectory of the script of Chand Mera Dil clearly show how scared they are of trying something unique.
