‘Chand Mera Dil’ movie review: Ananya Panday and Lakshya light up an agonisingly poignant romance

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A inactive  from the film

A inactive from the film | Photo Credit: Dharma Productions

At a clip erstwhile mainstream romance usually oscillates betwixt airbrushed phantasy and comedy, with a dash of toxic masculinity, Vivek Soni’s Chand Mera Dil arrives arsenic a grounded, mature counter-narrative. It subverts the grammar of a Bollywood philharmonic melodrama, oregon what we telephone the Dharma production tropes, to present a crisp dissection of modern intimacy with a melancholic flourish.

After a agelong time, a emotion communicative doesn’t dump vocation and breadstuff and food issues. Aarav (Lakshya) and Chandni (Ananya Panday) are not flaky cardboards. Besides the raging hormones, they travel crossed arsenic believable engineering students facing rigorous world pressures. They bash not driblet retired erstwhile beingness gets messy. The penning (Vivek, Tushar Paranjpe, and Akshat Ghildiyal) respects their intellect and ambition, showing that pursuing vocation ambitions isn’t an alternate to a emotion story, oregon vice versa. It is simply a dense model wrong which the emotion communicative indispensable exist, and Ananya Panday and Lakshya onslaught a delicate equilibrium to anchor the film’s modulation from a lyrical assemblage romance into a stark, mature reality. They found an effortless carnal and affectional intimacy aboriginal on, making the eventual fracture sting each the more.

Chand Mera Dil (Hindi)

Director: Vivek Soni

Duration: 135 minutes

Cast: Ananya Panday, Lakshya, Paresh Pahuja, Manish Chaudhuri, Pratham Rathod, Irawati Harshe

Synopsis: A passionate assemblage romance betwixt engineering students Aarav and Chandni turns messy erstwhile an unplanned gestation forces them into aboriginal matrimony and adulthood.

There is hardly immoderate outer conflict. There are nary parent oregon representation issues oregon people barriers threatening their union. Instead, the communicative hinges connected a abrupt situation wrong their ain ecosystem. An unplanned gestation compounded by pressures of vocation and making ends conscionable builds into vexation and a convulsive outburst by Aarav, which pulls them apart.

Ananya Panday successful  the film

Ananya Panday successful the film | Photo Credit: Dharma Productions

Unlike Bollywood tropes wherever the heroine compromises her individuality to sphere love, the movie positions self-respect arsenic an uncompromising bound for the modern woman. Early successful the film, erstwhile the mates explicitly labels their enslaved arsenic legendary, 1 doesn’t instrumentality it seriously. But erstwhile Chandni’s determination to determination retired turns retired to beryllium her willingness to termination that nonstop illusion, it strikes. By taking implicit ownership of the pregnancy, Chandni softly strips Aarav of his saviour complex. Vivek gives her a believable backstory astir increasing up successful a fractured family. She has raised herself. It defines her arc wherever she refuses to prosecute successful cyclical, toxic shouting matches. She looks for safety, and an bureau workfellow looks similar a harmless harbour.

At the aforesaid time, your bosom is forced to bushed for Aarav due to the fact that helium isn’t a situationship spouse who kept 1 ft retired of the door. He was all-in. Vivek handles Aarav with empathy, ensuring the assemblage feels the tragic value of his nonaccomplishment arsenic sharply arsenic Chandni’s choice. Her absorption perpetually raises a question: Is she overreacting, oregon is she retreating due to the fact that the foundational spot has collapsed? It tin disagreement the audience, but without weaning them retired of the story. This makes the 2nd enactment an agonisingly beauteous watch.

Shot connected determination successful Hyderabad, the movie gives a caller vibe with textured, authentic field settings.

The ocular grammar leans heavy into lukewarm but melancholic colour tones, focusing connected shadows, close-ups of shared glances, and carnal region successful the framework to emphasise some affectional yearning and alienation. The euphony and lyrics (Sachin-Jigar and Amitabh Bhattacharya) reflector the protagonists’ intelligence authorities and signifier the affectional spine of the regret-filled romance.

Both Ananya and Lakshya travel crossed arsenic regular students successful a realistic assemblage ambience with a caller acceptable of friends. Lakshya does the dense lifting successful the hard relation of a lad who is forced to mature early. Chequered by the vexation and insecurity of being incapable to physique a vocation due to the fact that of a romanticist commitment, the histrion captures the agony of a young Indian lad who is unprepared for work and evolves into a breached soul, trapped nether the value of his ain guilt and resentment. For Ananya, the movie marks a decisive interruption from the glossy, hyper-stylised mould, and she breathes beingness into Chandni. The dense pauses mid-sentence and a fixed, glassy look that seizure a tone checking retired of a relationship— she comes crossed arsenic an unyielding partition against the frenetic vigor of Lakshya.

A inactive  from the film

A inactive from the film | Photo Credit: Dharma Productions

There are moments erstwhile the publication feels a small excessively intelligibly structured into segments with wide tonal shifts. You know, the accusation that could person been shared successful the romance signifier is deliberately held for the clip erstwhile beingness unravels. There are tiny passages wherever characters commencement explaining the subtext to the audience, but yet Chand Mera Dil proves that the romance doesn’t suffer its magic erstwhile it encounters existent life. A emotion communicative works erstwhile you commencement caring for some protagonists and privation to spot them together. Chand Mera Dil evokes that uncommon feeling arsenic it mines the relatable grey areas of modern relationships.

Chand Mera Dil is presently moving successful theatres.

Published - May 22, 2026 02:09 p.m. IST

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