Chand Mera Dil Review: Ananya Panday Impresses in a Love Story That Feels Painfully Real & Practical

Chand Mera Dil: In theatres

Director: Vivek Soni

Produced By: Dharma Productions

Cast: Ananya Panday, Lakshya, Manish Chaudhary, Aastha Singh, Paresh Pahuja

Rating: 3/5 stars

There are love stories that exist only as fairytales. Perfect lighting, perfect people, perfect endings. And then there’s Chand Mera Dil, a film that begins as your comfort-romance watch and slowly turns into something far more uncomfortable, complicated and painfully real.

Directed by Vivek Soni, the film starring Ananya Panday and Lakshya feels like someone took pieces of 2 States, emotional traces of Thappad, flashes of Kabir Singh, and modern relationship dramas, and stitched them together into a deeply practical love story. Sometimes beautifully, sometimes clumsily, but always honestly. This is not a film trying to sell you dream romance. It is trying to show what happens after the butterflies settle down. What happens when love starts carrying the weight of expectations, ego, exhaustion, family pressure and emotional damage. And honestly, that’s where Chand Mera Dil works the most.

Not Your Typical Boy-Meets-Girl Story

At its core, the film follows Aarav and Chandni, two young people who fall in love at a stage in life where emotions are intense, dramatic and all-consuming. In the beginning, the film carries the warmth of a soft campus romance. There are stolen moments, hostel visits, playful flirting and that familiar feeling of first love where everything feels cinematic.

In fact, the college portions instantly remind you of 2 States. Chandni entering the boys’ hostel to meet Aarav has the exact emotional energy of Ananya and Krish’s early romance track from that film. Even the family dinner table dynamics and some emotional beats feel heavily inspired from films we have already seen before.

But Chand Mera Dil eventually moves away from being just another youthful romance. The second half becomes heavier, quieter and emotionally chaotic. The film slowly strips the glamour away from love and asks uncomfortable questions about relationships, compromise, emotional hurt and how people change when life starts happening for real. And while certain moments feel familiar, the emotional messiness makes it feel authentic enough to stay engaging.

Ananya Panday And Lakshya Bring The Film Alive

This is easily one of Ananya Panday’s most grounded performances till date. She plays Chandni with softness and vulnerability instead of performance-heavy dramatics. Her breakdowns feel natural. Her silences speak more than her dialogues at times. There’s a rawness in the way she portrays emotional exhaustion that genuinely lands. Chandni is flawed, emotional, confused and reactive and that’s exactly why she feels believable.

The biggest surprise, however, is how naturally she fits into the emotional tone of the film. There’s no effort to appear “perfect” on screen. She simply exists as this girl trying to hold herself together while life slowly slips out of control.

Lakshya, on the other hand, gets a completely different space compared to what audiences have seen from him earlier. After seeing him in Kill and The Ba**ds of Bollywood*, Chand Mera Dil finally gives him room to be emotionally vulnerable. And he shines most in the quieter scenes.

Whether it is apologising, expressing affection in tiny ways or simply sitting through emotional tension, Lakshya handles softness very well. He has that approachable “guy-next-door” charm that suits Aarav perfectly. Yes, there are moments where his dialogue delivery weakens. A few emotional outbursts don’t hit as powerfully as intended and some words get lost in his enunciation. But emotionally? He stays convincing.

More importantly, the chemistry between him and Ananya works. And it works because it feels comfortable. There is an ease between them that never looks manufactured for the camera. Their relationship feels lived-in. Even when the writing gets dramatic, their dynamic keeps the film emotionally believable.

The Film’s Strongest Moments Are Its Most Uncomfortable Ones

One of the best portions of the film is the confrontation sequence between Aarav and Chandni with the emotionally fractured relationship at the centre of it all.

The scene carries tension without turning melodramatic. The writing and direction allow emotions to simmer instead of explode theatrically. You can sense resentment, exhaustion, disappointment and years of emotional baggage sitting at the same table together. That’s where Vivek Soni succeeds as a director.

He understands emotional awkwardness. He knows relationships are not always loud. Sometimes people sit quietly while everything falls apart internally. And the film captures that silence beautifully.

The strongest thing about Chand Mera Dil is that it never tries too hard to make love look poetic. Instead, it presents love as deeply imperfect. Healing one day, destructive the next. Tender and exhausting at the same time. Even the ending leaves you slightly unsettled. You may walk out wondering, “Wait… what exactly just happened?” But strangely, that confusion works in the film’s favour because life rarely gives clean emotional conclusions either.

Dialogues, Music And The Problem With Over-Stylising Emotions

The dialogues in the film are a mixed bag. Some conversations feel deeply genuine and intimate, like something overheard between real couples. But then there are moments where the writing suddenly slips into Instagram-caption territory. And those moments stand out badly.

There’s a texting scene where the characters say things like “I’m hugging you” and “Now I’m kissing you” while sitting apart, and instead of emotional, it feels unintentionally funny. Another scene involving Chandni coughing and Aarav replying with a flirtatious throat infection joke leaves you wondering whether to laugh or cringe.

The film often balances between sincerity and over-written romance, and not every line lands the way it intends to.

Musically though, the film performs much better. The soundtrack quietly supports the emotional graph instead of hijacking scenes. Songs like Aitbaar and Khasiyat blend naturally into the narrative and enhance emotional moments without screaming for attention. And whenever Shreya Ghoshal enters the soundtrack, the emotional ache instantly deepens. The music understands the loneliness this film carries.

Unfortunately, the cinematography becomes inconsistent. The visual palette remains oddly dull throughout large portions of the film. Certain shots look intentionally experimental but end up feeling shaky, blurry and unfinished instead. The excessive handheld moments, performative snap-style cuts and over-styled camera movements occasionally distract from the emotional depth.

It almost feels like the film wanted realism but confused realism with visual roughness. Some scenes look beautiful. Others feel visually undercooked.

A Film That Stays With You Despite Its Flaws

What makes Chand Mera Dil interesting is that even when it stumbles, you remain emotionally invested. The pacing slows down considerably in the middle portions and the screenplay occasionally drifts. Some scenes could definitely have been sharper and more tightly edited. But the emotional honesty keeps pulling you back in.

Because underneath all the cinematic references and familiar relationship-drama templates, the film understands one thing very well, love changes people.

Not every relationship survives timing. Not every couple grows in the same direction. Sometimes love exists, but life becomes louder. And Chand Mera Dil captures that emotional transition with sincerity.

Produced by Karan Johar, Hiroo Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Adar Poonawalla, Somen Mishra and Marijke de Souza, the film may not reinvent romance dramas, but it definitely attempts to make them feel emotionally closer to reality. It is messy. Uneven. Tender. Frustrating. Intimate. Just like real relationships.

Verdict

Chand Mera Dil is not a grand fairytale romance. It is a relationship drama filled with emotional discomfort, quiet heartbreak and practical realities. While the film borrows familiar shades from movies like 2 States and Thappad, the grounded performances by Ananya Panday and Lakshya, coupled with its emotionally honest writing, help it leave an impact. It does not always work technically, and some dialogues feel unintentionally cheesy, but when the film chooses honesty over drama, it truly shines.