Chand Mera Dil movie review: Lakshya-Ananya Panday’s love story explores the messy side of love, shining with promise yet marked by imperfections.
Quick Vibes
Genre: Relationship Drama
Vibes: Messy but relatable
Film Credits
Cast: Lakshya, Ananya Panday, Paresh Pahuja
Director: Vivek Soni
Writers: Vivek Soni (story and screenplay), Tushar Paranjape (screenplay), Akshat Ghildial, Vivek Soni and Tushar Paranjape (dialogues)
Story
Chand Mera Dil opens in Michigan, where Aarav (Lakshya) slips into flashback mode about the ‘chand’ of his life — Chandni (Ananya Panday). Their story begins in an engineering college in Hyderabad, where Aarav does what a filmi hero does: he accidentally on-purpose ‘twins’ with her, croons a romantic song in the campus, and voilà, our girl is smitten.
When Chandni’s friend tells her, ‘Chandni, bahut regular hai Aarav’, her reply is, “Isliye pasand hai woh mujhe.” Regular? Sure, if your definition of regular includes washboard abs and a habit of puffing away like a Bollywood rebel. She takes the first initiative, and before you know it, the birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, and reality enters the chat. Surprise! A baby is on the way.
Chandni decides to keep the baby, and Aarav, flexing responsibility along with his abs, agrees to step up as a father. The duo happily fast-track their way to marriage, convinced that love, a baby carriage, and mutual attraction are all you need to conquer the world. Soon, their rose-tinted glasses come off, and they discover the messy side of ‘happily ever after’ that no background score can smooth over.
What’s Yay
Unlike the usual Bollywood romances that end with a glittery ‘happily ever after’, Chand Mera Dil flips the script and asks what happens when the curtains fall. The film makes a refreshing choice of showing love in its imperfect form.
What’s Nay
The film promises phases of love, but Chandni’s character arc feels stuck in a crescent.
Writing And Direction
While the premise of spotlighting the unglamorous side of love is highly commendable, the execution in Chand Mera Dil unfortunately suffers from narrative whiplash. The shift from breezy college romance to heavy domestic dread happens so abruptly it feels like the audience has been shoved into another film.
By fast‑tracking the initial connection, the screenplay doesn’t give the audience enough time to invest in Aarav and Chandni’s bond, making the marital fallout feel more like a script requirement than a natural progression.
Chandni’s character is set up with promise but ends up wobbling between extremes. She oscillates between fierce independence and contradictory choices. One moment she’s determined to raise a child alone, the next she’s rebuking her single mother for giving ‘half love’. Such swings make her arc feel impulsive rather than layered.
The film touches on Chandni’s past trauma, but never fully explores or resolves it. Instead of becoming a powerful thread, it’s left hanging, reducing her choices to reactionary impulses rather than meaningful growth. By the climax, her admission ironically validates Aarav’s earlier frustration, undermining the film’s intended point about love, agency and resilience.
While Chandni’s journey feels scattered, Aarav’s arc is more straightforward, from carefree lover to responsible man. The imbalance makes the film tilt toward his evolution, leaving Chandni’s ‘chand’ dimmer in the sky (film).
The climax feels more like the makers hitting the ‘Bollywood default’ button. In trading authenticity for formula, the film undercuts its own bold premise.
Performances
Lakshya gets to unleash torrents of emotion- sobbing, raging, and breaking down in full throttle, and he carries most of it with surprising conviction. Even in the louder, more melodramatic stretches, he manages to keep the emotion grounded enough that it doesn’t tip into parody. It’s not subtle acting by any means, but it’s effective.
Ananya Panday fares slightly better here than in her previous outings. There are flashes where her vulnerability feels genuine. The uneven writing of Chandni’s arc also blunts some of her efforts. At times, she’s left reacting rather than driving the narrative, which makes her performance feel stronger in patches than in entirety.
Paresh Pahuja’s performance sits firmly in the middle lane: competent, but far from memorable.
Tech Check
Debojeet Ray’s cinematography leans towards the Johar-esque gloss. So, you get wide, sweeping shots of college campuses and domestic interiors, drenched in pastel tones and soft lighting. It’s visually lush, almost like an Instagram filter stretched across the film. At times, the symmetrical blocking give the scenes a ‘designed’ feel.
Prashanth Ramachandran’s editing does the job, but it never quite rises above functional.
Playlist Fact
The album of Chand Mera Dil finds its heartbeat in three tracks: the title song ‘Chand Mera Dil‘, Shreya Ghoshal’s reimagined version of the same, and ‘Khasiyat‘ sung by Raghav Chaitanya and Jonita Gandhi.
‘Khasiyat‘ instantly transports you back to the breezy 2000s- the era of college‑campus romance, and songs that felt like they were tailor‑made for long drives with the windows down.
The Final Shot
Aarav (Lakshya) may call Chandni (Ananya Panday) the moon, but Chand Mera Dil only manages a half‑glow. Lakshya’s emotional eclipse and Ananya’s flickers of vulnerability keep it from going pitch‑black, but the formulaic climax and patchy writing leave it stuck in a predictable orbit. It glimmers here and there, yet never quite turns into the radiant moon it promises to be.
