IMDb #206 Review: Dil Chahta Hai (2001)

Source: Wikipedia

Three Indian college buddies--the cheesy artist, the bland indecisive guy, and the wild self-proclaimed ladykiller--fall in love in three very different directions and therefore make three varieties of horribly shortsighted decisions. Hos before bros, THE MOVIE! Then consequences plonk down like hailstones, and reparations begin out of sheer necessity.

After the best summer of their lives, the dudebro trio puts aside funky beach trips and wacky pranks and posing on sailboats. They grow into actual people, with jobs and financial responsibilities and career plans.

One guy chases another guy's fiancee, another goes after an older woman with more baggage than Mumbai International Airport, and the third realizes an arranged marriage isn't so bad if she's smoking hot.

Not a brain-taxing flick, unless you're watching without subtitles. Every other line alternates between English and Hindi. Good luck, monolinguals.

Being Bollywood, the drama pauses for SONG-AND-DANCE NUMBERS, homages to vintage Bollywood, and (for some reason) Italian opera parallelisms.

Underneath all the pointless interpersonal drama, there's a sincere film that's actually pretty funny when it wants to be. Sometimes, when it wants to be serious, it does okay at that too.

In a great union of funny and serious, the title means, "The heart wants," presumably followed by "what it wants." And presumably finished with especially if what it wants is tremendously stupid.

184 minutes.