Yes, i'm writing a lot about this maybe overrated melodrama and it has got some chick flick vibes to it maybe, but
it doesn't hurt for me skipping the gory horrors and film noir crime twists for once and diving into this 3 hour plus
drama about friendship and love. Also, as i'm very vulnerable to female MILF beauty i'm a bit under her spell, the
lovely actress Dimple Kapadia and i really can understand Akshaye Khanna's role figure falling for her.
The talented Farhan Akhtar, story, screenplay, dialogue and direction, he's an actor, a producer, director, singer
etc. etc. and had his breakthrough with this film which won a bunch of Filmfare Awards. Another film with him (as
actor) that i like that's the 2009 unusual thriller Karthik Calling Karthik (read more on Bollywood page 2).

Dil Chahta Hai it's a drama about relations, about 3 friends in their early 30's. It's a bit melodrama soapy and
normally that's not my bag, but it snares you in with the great performances from some of the best actors in the
Mumbai film industry, Akshaye Khanna, Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Dimple Kapadia, and with
great direction from the wunderkid. Love vs. rigid conventions, that you've seen a zillion times before but this time
it's the depictions of friendship and the hardships it has to go through that's the most interesting.

The film includes a love relation between a younger man a middleage woman, maybe a big deal in India (?) so the
film has to have a BAD ending when the guilty bitch, the older woman, has to die. She dies and Happy End, Yuck!
Let's forget about that lousy end, maybe Akhtar had to do it to satisfy the producers and the stupid masses.

The film's about the 3 friends Siddarth (Akshaye Khanna, the nowadays unjustly forgotten but always good actor),
Akash (Aamir Khan) and Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) and starts when they meet in a hospital where Sids beloved
lays dying. Sid and Sameer talk about old times and why Akash and Sid lost contact with each other. How Akash
met and fell in love with Shalini (Preity Zinta) and then left to manage his father's office in Sydney, where he yet
again met Shalini .... and naturally, Akash lives in a Bollywood out-of-this world luxury apartment at the Sydney
harbour, obviously he's rich as a stuffed Pig ... yuck! Some bad writing there Mr. Farhan Akhtar.

Sid on the other hand met the 15 year older (or that about) and divorced interior decorator Tara, played by the
lovely legendary actress Dimple Kapadia. There are 3 love stories in the film: 1. Akash with Shalini 2. Sameer with
Pooja (Sonali Kulkarni) and 3. Siddarth with Tara, and i suppose Aamir Khan's with Preity Zinta is meant to be
the main number. It's OK and Zinta is great as always and Aamir's good too, he's the most carefree of the 3 friends
and is touching when he also encounters sorrow.
But, most gripping for me was Sid's love story with Tara .....

Akshaye Khanna and Dimple Kapadia - Spoiler Warning below - Spoiler Alert

I always did like Akshaye Khanna in films, often a bit serious and grumpy but a great actor, he for some reason dis-
appeared from the industry's limelight, maybe by his own will ? He always feels true in his performances.
When he's hit by Big Love in this film, meeting the gorgeous but a bit sad Tara, you can feel it in your own body,
that's great acting from both. I've only seen Dimple in 3 other films, 2 not very good ones from the 1980's (Bees
Saal Baad, 1988, see Bollywood page 3 and Aitbaar, 1985, see Bollywood page 3, and the unpleasant Saif Ali
Khan catastrophe Cocktail, 21012, see Bollywood page 2) so i guess this the best performance i've seen from her

Tara Jaiswal, the Lovely and soulful Dimple Kapadia

Dimple Kapadia was born 1957 and she's a multiple prize awarded actress and she started her actress career as a
16 year old in a Raj Kapoor hit movie. She was a smash success sensation in India but were soon lured away by
the older filmstar Rajesh Khanna and after doing Jailbait duty it took 10 years before her return to the movies.
Her daughter is Twinkle Khanna, once a big star she also, and her stepson is Akshay Kumar, the action superstar.
She's considered one of the great beauties in Bollywood history and is respected for her acting abilities

Back to the film and the Sid-Tara relationship

His relationship with 1. an older woman, and 2. a divorced older woman obviuosly is a No No in indian culture, or?
His mother, his friends and even Tara herself don't want to see him ruin his life .... RUIN HIS LIFE ... YUCK!
She's a free and educated woman earning her living as an architect, she's soulful, she's experienced (and probably
great in bed) and she's extremely beautiful, and only 44 years old (when the movie was made), all in all a FAT
MILF alert. This Sid and his family should be honored that this Goddess is interested in a poor (he's an artist?) and
slightly balding guy . Obviously there's huge cultural differences between a westerner here and indians, or?
If This Farhan Akhtar have had any guts, he would've let Tara live and marry Sid, and then they could've have had
their pair-dinners together with 6 at the table, to show that Big Love is Big Love and the only thing that matters.
But NO, she has to die so Sid can meet a properly aged breeding specimen of Bimbo to marry, and voilá the parents
are happy, his conservative friends are happy, the producers are happy and indian backwards audiences are happy.

There's some greatness to this soap melodrama but i don't think Orson Welles or Anurag Kashyap would've ended
this film the same false sugary sweet and mainstream way as Farhan Akhtar.
anamorphic widescreen, hindi audio 5.1 with english subtitles, 185 minutes long in a not so good US lowprized DVD
edition from Excel-Spark with the usual old problems with freezing here and there and some pixellation problems
during the second part of the film. Probably disc rot issues also if i wanted to watch this disc again in the future.
A nice soundtrack with i.a. the title tune Dil Chahta Hai (the heart wants)