Guwahati: As Dil Bechara unfolds, two things bubble to the surface instantly and poignantly. In many ways, Mukesh Chhabra’s directorial debut, an adaptation of John Green’s 2012 novel, The Fault in Our Stars, comes closest to filling in the gaps. And its famous line holds true as we sit down and watch Sushant Singh Rajput one last time. The last time he makes an ‘entry’, the last time he sings and dances, the last time he woos the leading lady, the last time he breaks down, unable to take the weight of it all.
The movie rejoices in life and love in the face of impending death.
Sushant plays Emmanuel Rajkumar Jr, or Manny, fleshes out a bubbly Jamshedpur boy who makes light of a disability caused by cancer. He enters the films backside first, engrossed in his ‘worship’ of Rajinikanth. Sensitive, sexy and smart – all at the same time – he manages to pull Sanjana Sanghi’s Kizie Basu out of the stupor she has fallen into. A cancer patient herself, Kizie’s constant companions are her oxygen cylinder – nicknamed Pushpinder – that she lugs around, and her concerned parents (played by Swastika Mukherjee and Saswata Chaterjee).Time is running out on the two but the couple is determined not to let the sense of mortality weigh them down.
The character of Manny exists to ease Kizie’s existence. And yet, Dil Bechara ends up being so much about Manny, not just because the makers wanted it that way but because it feeds into the perceived idea of the actor.
The film’s sloppiness and reliance on a love story that remains obdurately ineffective and surprisingly chaste, even after the tragedy that would befall on the characters is known, impede it from being the goodbye the actor deserved. But Chhabra’s film manages to be the missing epilogue of a story whose prologue is being shared and celebrated. It manages to be the goodbye we need.
One cannot help falling in love with Rajput and debutante Sanjana Sanghi. But Dil Bechara will obviously always belong to Sushant Singh Rajput.
Manny your killer smile will always be in our hearts.
A star shined for one last time. The light is so bright, that it has brought tears to every eye across the nation. We all miss you.
