Dil Hai Tumhara (2002)
Cast: Rekha, Preity Zinta, Mahima Chaudhary, Arjun Rampal, Jimmy Shergill
Director: Kundan Shah
Music Director: Nadeem Shravan
Synopsis: a hotchpotch of a film nearly saved by Priety Zinta's strong performance
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

Dark rainy nights should always be viewed with consternation especially when you are in a car. It can only mean one thing and just to set the term predictable in the context of this whole film, the car has an accident! Cut to death scene. Sarita (Rekha) holds philandering Hubby’s hand who informs her that he had married her against parental pressure and took up with first love at some point from whom, there is a “najayaz aulad”. Just before kicking the bucket, he extracts from Sarita, a promise to bring up this child as one of her own.

Stunned by his betrayal, she sells up and moves to Palampur, evidently adoring of her first child Nimmi but rather offish with the second. Well, thankfully, she is brought up as a child of the family and not a servant but as far as Shalu (Preity Zinta) is concerned, she is the bane of her mother’s existence. Nimmi(Mahima Chaudhary) is the much adored sister and the sisters have a very close bond, unknowing that they are in fact step sisters. If the film had decided to stick with this plot, then you may have had a film of some substance. But we deviate from all of this to bring in the love interest and a barrage of comic sub plots and unnecessary characters. Dev (Arjun Rampal) is the son of an industrialist who decides to pretend to be his father’s driver’s son and investigate one of his father’s loss making factories and whether it should be closed down or not. He ends up in Palampur and over one fateful night when he is chauffeuring the verbose Shalu to Delhi, he falls in love with her, so enchanted is he by her dancing in the dark, in jeans and belly button on show. Oops, but that becomes a problem of sorts as Sister Nimmi has already fallen into the “drivers arms” and taken off on her own trip. And by the way, we have the ventriloquist Sameer (Jimmy Shergill), who has always loved Shalu but is unable to say so and hangs around in his jungle den waiting for acceptance in the most pathetic way. If I was Nimmi, I would be a most complexed and disgruntled sister, not knowing what it is about her sister that prompts all men to fall for her but no one to be attracted to her.

Film takes a dramatic turn when “Mother” finds out that its Shalu who has the affection of Dev, now out of the closet as the son of the industrialist and not Nimmi. Sure that Shalu is out to wreck her precious daughter’s life, just as her mother had ruined hers, she reveals all to Shalu who as it is, had sacrificed her love for the happiness of her sister. What I find so utterly amazing is that Shalu can force Dev to marry her sister when he has absolutely no feeling for her, when he does not love her...this is not a new plot..we had Rani do the same to Hrithik in Mujhse dosti karoge. Why cant they just say NO!

Its all a hotch potch really and the central thread of the film, that of mother-daughter relationship gets lost somewhere in the midst of farcical proceedings, hardly funny and with little charm. The potential is there but Kundan Shah cannot decide whether he wants to make this a comedy or an emotionally charged drama and eventually falls between the two, failing in both respects. The film is punctuated with dulls songs which have no place in the story line and make for a much longer and duller film than it should have been.

Preity Zinta is the life of the film and the film revolves almost entirely around her. And she brings a freshness to her performance that perhaps no other would be able to do. With Preity, she makes her character very believable and you never feel that this is Preity playing Shalu. And it is this underplaying and naturalness which belies the fact she is an excellent actress, probably far better than most but she manages to underplay to the extent that you almost don’t notice. Except that you do. Rekha could have had a lengthier role which would have tipped the balance from being a more dramatic rather than comic film, which would only have added to the film. Perhaps one needs convincing that this mother would have such a volte face towards the end but her performance as the reluctant mother is very believable and hats off to her in not making her a caricature of evil step mothers. Her scenes with Preity are the high point of the film.

Mahima is an actress who has never got her due. This film will do nothing for her and much of the time she is either falling on Arjun Rampal, or falling for him!!! There is no drama or friction between the sisters, which although touching, takes out any potential for Mahima’s character to be anything but the sacrificial lamb, which Mahima has played oh so many times in the past. But hats off to her to take up a role like this knowing full well that its Preity’s film all the way.

Arjun Rampal tries his hand at comedy and you can see the attraction to the role. But this is not “Jaane bhi do yaaro” and the bits of slapstick thrown in do not work in the film. This is an experiment which does not quite work but you again have to admire the man for taking the role. Jimmy Shergill is utterly wasted..in fact, you could have cut him out of the film and it would not have made a difference.

Nadeem Shravan have plundered their bank of film tunes and produced some of the dullest songs imaginable barring one or two tunes which sound so much like any of their other films. And their “Chahe Zubaan” is the most blatant lift of O.P Nayyar’s music, with Sonu Nigam aping Rafi’s O.P Nayyar style to the T but nevertheless, not achieving the magic of the past master. Dil hai Tumhara fails to live up to any expectations one may have had, primarily because of a lousy script but manages to sustain a modicum of interest simply because of the performances. Its the curse of the rainy night actually..when you see that the script is resorting to hideous clichés like that, you know you aren’t going to see anything novel!