Yash Chopra’s Dil To Pagal Hai (DTPH) released in 1997, attempts to be the best-choice Valentinian film. Sorrily, much of it looks dated now. The excitement of watching Shah Rukh Khan searching for “perfect love” through a gauntlet of 12 songs and sets resembling a 12-year-old kids’ summer camp party fantasy wears thin.
Shiamak Davar’s “original” choreography now looks like a series of tricky hand movements with no support from the feet. The costumes have understandably dated. As Rahul, Shah Rukh Khan shares zero chemistry with the ostensible love of his life, Pooja, played by Madhuri Dixit. For more than half the film, scriptwriters Aditya Chopra, Tanuja Chandra, Pamela Chopra, and Yash Chopra keep the two apart.
It is astonishing how four kindred spirits came up with a screenplay so wispy and lightweight, the drama keeps floating away into la-la land. Especially when it claims to be an “eternal” love story. Even the hit Uttam Singh songs endorse the fluffy mood.
At the most, Dil To Pagal Hai, is a natty date movie with lots of colour music. The vibrant tone of narration talks of “someone somewhere” the ideal mate for everyone. But couldn’t be bothered with anything more than the here and now.
Yash Chopra wants to celebrate the immediacy of romance; its lingering effect is avoided for some other time. The film begins with a montage of real-life couples captured in a moment of shared warmth. If we hope to see the same warmth being extended to the fictional characters, we are in for a disappointment. Shah Rukh’s Rahul comes across as a kiddish, self-centered, attention-seeking rake. He couldn’t care less about his ‘Chandramukhi’ Nisha (Karisma Kapoor) going bonkers over him.
The entire team of dancers and musicians knows Nisha is hopelessly in love with Rahul.
He doesn’t. We now know why love is considered blind. Shah Rukh’s Rahul is infantilized Devdas, whose death wish is vocalized in his constant refrain, ‘Mar gaya Rahul.’
Seen as a Chitrahaar on the Mills & Boon variety of love, Dil To Pagal Hai works fairly well even today. The principal cast’s time-proof charm will make you smile. But if you are looking for a sensitive discourse on love, like what we saw in Yash Chopra’s Daag, Lamhe, or Chandni or even the neglected Faasle, then this one will leave you cold.
More dishy than deep, more ditzy than dizzying, Dil To Pagal Hai is a musical with a sterile heart. It sings and dances (and sings and dances…) about romance, love, and togetherness with the crispness of a bag of potato chips and with just as much staying power.
My favourite character in Dil To Pagal Hai is Pooja’s dotty uncle Deven Verma, who loves to sing even if the audience is his house help and building watchman. And the best performance comes from Aruna Irani as, Pooja’s dance teacher. She enters late in the film to leave a lingering impact. As for the film….oh well, dil toh pagal hai dil deewana hai. Let’s welcome the encore.
