At a time when mainstream romance usually oscillates between airbrushed fantasy and comedy, with a dash of toxic masculinity, Vivek Soni’s Chand Mera Dil arrives as a grounded, mature counter-narrative. It subverts the grammar of a Bollywood musical melodrama, or what we call the Dharma production tropes, to deliver a sharp dissection of modern intimacy with a melancholic flourish.

After a long time, a love story doesn’t dump career and bread and butter issues. Aarav (Lakshya) and Chandni (Ananya Panday) are not flaky cardboards. Besides the raging hormones, they come across as believable engineering students facing rigorous academic pressures. They do not drop out when life gets messy. The writing (Vivek, Tushar Paranjpe, and Akshat Ghildiyal) respects their intellect and ambition, showing that pursuing career ambitions isn’t an alternative to a love story, or vice versa. It is a heavy framework within which the love story must exist, and Ananya Panday and Lakshya strike a delicate equilibrium to anchor the film’s transition from a lyrical college romance into a stark, mature reality. They establish an effortless physical and emotional intimacy early on, making the eventual fracture sting all the more.

There is hardly any external conflict. There are no mother or memory issues or class barriers threatening their union. Instead, the narrative hinges on a sudden crisis within their own ecosystem. An unplanned pregnancy compounded by pressures of career and making ends meet builds into frustration and a violent outburst by Aarav, which pulls them apart.

Unlike Bollywood tropes where the heroine compromises her identity to preserve love, the film positions self-respect as an uncompromising boundary for the modern woman. Early in the film, when the couple explicitly labels their bond as legendary, one doesn’t take it seriously. But when Chandni’s decision to move out turns out to be her willingness to kill that exact illusion, it strikes. By taking complete ownership of the pregnancy, Chandni quietly strips Aarav of his saviour complex. Vivek gives her a believable backstory about growing up in a fractured family. She has raised herself. It defines her arc where she refuses to engage in cyclical, toxic shouting matches. She looks for safety, and an office colleague looks like a safe harbour.

At the same time, your heart is forced to beat for Aarav because he isn’t a situationship partner who kept one foot out of the door. He was all-in. Vivek handles Aarav with empathy, ensuring the audience feels the tragic weight of his loss as sharply as Chandni’s choice. Her resistance constantly raises a question: Is she overreacting, or is she retreating because the foundational trust has collapsed? It can divide the audience, but without weaning them out of the story. This makes the second act an agonisingly beautiful watch.

Shot on location in Hyderabad, the film gives a fresh vibe with textured, authentic campus settings.

The visual grammar leans heavily into warm but melancholic colour tones, focusing on shadows, close-ups of shared glances, and physical distance in the frame to emphasise both emotional yearning and alienation. The music and lyrics (Sachin-Jigar and Amitabh Bhattacharya) mirror the protagonists’ psychological state and form the emotional spine of the regret-filled romance.

Both Ananya and Lakshya come across as regular students in a realistic college ambience with a fresh set of friends. Lakshya does the heavy lifting in the difficult role of a boy who is forced to mature early. Chequered by the frustration and insecurity of being unable to build a career because of a romantic commitment, the actor captures the agony of a young Indian boy who is unprepared for responsibility and evolves into a broken soul, trapped under the weight of his own guilt and resentment. For Ananya, the film marks a decisive break from the glossy, hyper-stylised mould, and she breathes life into Chandni. The heavy pauses mid-sentence and a fixed, glassy stare that capture a spirit checking out of a relationship— she comes across as an unyielding wall against the frenetic energy of Lakshya.

There are moments when the script feels a little too clearly structured into segments with clear tonal shifts. You know, the information that could have been shared in the romance phase is deliberately held for the time when life unravels. There are small passages where characters start explaining the subtext to the audience, but eventually Chand Mera Dil proves that the romance doesn’t lose its magic when it encounters real life. A love story works when you start caring for both protagonists and want to see them together. Chand Mera Dil evokes that rare feeling as it mines the relatable grey areas of modern relationships.

Chand Mera Dil is currently running in theatres.