Okay. My face is a mess. It’s 2:47 AM and the credits for Dil Bechara just rolled on my laptop and I’m just… sitting here. In the dark. The Hotstar player is probably going to pop up with that "Are you still watching?" question any second now and I feel like throwing my laptop at the wall. Yes, I'm still watching. I'm still reeling. I feel like I’ve been put through a wringer. A very sad, Bollywood-shaped wringer.
I knew what I was getting into. Of course, I did. Everyone knows. You don't go into Dil Bechara blind. It's Sushant. It's the last one. That knowledge hangs over the entire thing like a heavy, heavy blanket. It’s not just a movie anymore, is it? It’s a memorial. It’s an epitaph. And I feel guilty, almost, for judging it as a movie. But I have to. That’s what I do. So… was it good? I don't even know what "good" means right now. My brain is soup. Emotional soup.
I watched it at home, on Hotstar, obviously. It’s been there since it came out. I put it off for over a year. Why? Because I’m a coward. I knew it would hurt. And I was right. It hurts. It hurts so much. There’s something so uniquely cruel about watching this on my comfortable couch, wrapped in a blanket, with the ability to pause. I had to pause it. Twice. The first time was when Manny first meets Kizie’s dad. The sheer awkwardness, the defiance in Manny’s eyes… it was too much. I had to get up and walk around my tiny apartment for a minute. The second time was… well, we’ll get there.
Manny. God, Manny. Sushant Singh Rajput just is this character. He’s so full of life. So much energy. He’s bouncing off the walls, making terrible jokes, forcing his way into Kizie’s life with this relentless, sunny optimism that you know is a ticking time bomb. And that’s the part that gets you. It’s not just that he’s going to die. It’s that he’s so, so alive while he’s here. There's this one scene, it's not even a big, dramatic one. They're just in his garage, working on that beat-up car, and he's trying to teach her how to fix something. He's covered in grease, grinning from ear to ear, and he says something like, "See? Simple. Zindagi mein thoda grease lagta hai, phir chalti hai." (You just need a little grease in life, then it keeps going). And I just lost it. Not full-on sobbing yet, but the tears started. Because all I could think was… he’s not talking about the car. And it’s just… a lot.
And Kizie. Sanjana Sanghi was good. Really good. She had the impossible job of playing opposite that gravitational pull of Sushant’s performance and the real-life tragedy. She held her own. Her journey from this cynical, (closed-off) girl who only listens to sad songs to someone who dares to love and dare to live… it felt earned. You believed it. You had to.
But honestly, I’m having a hard time separating the character from the actor. Every time Manny smiled, I saw Sushant. Every time he danced, I saw that behind-the-scenes clip of him dancing on set. Every time he talked about his dreams, I thought about all the dreams he had that were cut short. Am I rating the movie, or am I rating my grief? I don't know. I thought I loved that part where he crashes the wedding and gives that speech, but now that I'm typing this... was it actually kind of unbelievable? Would a guy really do that? Or did I just want to believe it because it was *him* doing it? I can't tell. My objectivity is completely shot.
There's this one moment that is just burned into my brain right now. It's the end, of course. After he’s gone. Kizie goes to his room, and she finds the comic book he made for her. The "Dil Bechara" comic. And she starts reading his final letter. His voiceover. "Jab tak zinda hoon, tumhare paas hoon... Aur marne ke baad bhi, main tumhare paas hoon." (As long as I'm alive, I'm with you... And even after I die, I'm still with you). I was a wreck. I was clutching my pillow so hard my knuckles were white. I was sobbing. Not just crying, full-body, ugly, can't-breathe sobbing. It was the combination of his voice, the simple drawings in the comic, and the finality of it all. It was the character saying goodbye, but it felt like the actor saying goodbye. It was too much. It was just too, too much.
It made me think of this friend I had in school, Rohan. We were inseparable. We made all these plans. We were going to backpack across Europe after college, we had it all mapped out. We even had a little jar where we'd put spare change for the "Europe Fund." Then, in 10th grade, his dad got a job in Singapore and they had to move. I remember the last day at school. We didn't say much. We just stood by the school gate. He gave me the jar. It was half-full. He said, "You go for both of us." And I just nodded. I never saw him again. We talked on the phone a few times, then it faded. It's not the same, I know. It's not death. But that feeling… that feeling of a future you planned together just vanishing. A promise broken by circumstance. Watching Kizie read that letter, it brought all of that back. That sharp, sudden ache of something gone forever.
And the music! Don't even get me started on the music. A.R. Rahman is a god, but this felt… different. "Maskhari" is such a fun, upbeat song, but now when I hear it, my heart just sinks. It’s the sound of happiness before the fall. The title track is just… an emotional sledgehammer. It’s playing in my head right now, on a loop. I feel like I need to listen to something else, something loud and angry, to get it out, but I can't bring myself to do it. I need to sit with the sadness for a bit.
The whole viewing experience was just bizarre. Here I am, in my pyjamas, on my couch, in the quiet of my apartment. And this massive, epic, tragic story is unfolding on a 15-inch screen. I could hear my fridge humming in the middle of the most emotional scenes. My phone buzzed with a stupid notification from a food delivery app. It felt so… mundane. So wrong. This movie deserved to be seen in a dark theater, with a hundred other people, all crying together. But then again, maybe it was better this way. To have this private, personal breakdown. To not have to hide my face from anyone.
I think the movie itself… the story… it’s familiar. It’s *The Fault in Our Stars*. We all know that. It doesn't do anything wildly new with the plot. But the Indian context, the little touches… the friend Jaggi, the obsession with the incomplete song, the family dynamics… it made it its own thing. And Manny’s philosophy, that "joy is an act of resistance"… that stuck with me. He’s not just a happy-go-lucky guy. He’s actively fighting against his own tragedy with every smile. And isn't that what we all try to do? On a smaller scale?
Okay, I'm rambling. My thoughts are all over the place. I feel empty and full at the same time. I'm sad, but I'm also glad I finally watched it. It was a tribute. A beautiful, heartbreaking, perfect tribute. It was a reminder of what we lost. Not just a great actor, but a light. A real, shining, effervescent light. And seeing him one last time, playing a character so full of that same light… it was a gift. A painful, gut-wrenching gift. And I'm grateful for it. I think.
Alright. That's enough. I need to go drink like, a gallon of water and try to erase the image of that empty wheelchair from my eyelids.
9/10. Not for its originality, but for its heart. For his heart. - solid - one of the my favorite romantic movie
- Ishaan