Dil Dhadakne Do () is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language family comedy drama film directed by Zoya Akhtar and produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar under the Excel Entertainment banner. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shah, Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma and Farhan Akhtar with a voice-over narration by Aamir Khan. The film tells the story of the Mehras, a dysfunctional family who invite their family and friends on a 10-day cruise trip to celebrate the parents' 30th wedding anniversary and later reconcile.
Zoya conceived the film as a family drama centred on a brother-sister relationship. She wanted to depict a more realistic sibling relationship in contrast to the dubious and over-the-top portrayal for which Bollywood is known. She later wrote the script with her friend and longtime collaborator Reema Kagti, while Farhan penned the dialogues. Much of the principal photography was done on Pullmantur Cruises' ship MS Sovereign while sailing across the Mediterranean and Europe, and on land in France, Spain, Italy, Tunisia, and Turkey.
The soundtrack was composed by the trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, with lyrics written by Javed Akhtar. The film was released worldwide on 5 June 2015 to positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Kapoor, Shah, Chopra, and Singh, as well as Akhtar's direction, the film's music, cinematography and costumes; however, it received criticism for its long runtime and climax. Nevertheless, it proved to be a commercial success, having grossed on a budget of .
At the 61st Filmfare Awards, Dil Dhadakne Do received 5 nominations, including Best Supporting Actress (for both Shah and Sharma), winning Best Supporting Actor (Kapoor). It also received 9 nominations at the 2016 Screen Awards, including Best Film and Best Director (Zoya Akhtar), and won 2 awards – Best Supporting Actor (Kapoor) and Best Ensemble Cast.
Plot Kamal Mehra is a self-made billionaire businessman based in Delhi who faces imminent financial ruin as his conglomerate, AyKa, teeters on the verge of bankruptcy. This corporate stress compounds his deeply fractured relationships with his wife Neelam, his daughter Ayesha, and his son Kabir. Ayesha operates a highly successful corporate travel enterprise in Mumbai but is profoundly trapped in an unhappy marriage to Manav Sangha, a narcissistic and controlling executive whose wealthy family harbors an underlying contempt for the Mehras. Meanwhile, Kabir is forced to undergo grooming to inherit his father's industrial empire, despite harboring a personal dream of becoming a commercial pilot.
To project an illusion of corporate stability and celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary, Kamal and Neelam invite their affluent social circle for a ten-day luxury cruise across the Mediterranean Sea. Among the guests are the Sood family. Kamal and Neelam covertly plan to orchestrate a marriage alliance between Kabir and the Soods' daughter, Noorie, in a strategic bid to secure a massive financial investment from her father, Lalit, to liquidate AyKa's debts. However, the plan derails when Kabir falls in love with Farah Ali, a British-Pakistani dancer performing on the cruise. Concurrently, Noorie has secretly fallen for Rana Khanna, the son of her family's bitter rivals.
As the voyage progresses, social pressures mount on Ayesha and Manav to conceive a child; unknown to anyone, Ayesha has been consistently taking birth control pills to avoid anchoring herself to her husband. Tensions escalate further when Sunny Gill, the son of Kamal's long-term manager, joins the cruise as a journalist. Sunny and Ayesha were deeply in love during their youth, but Kamal had intentionally separated them by financing Sunny’s scholarship to Yale University to prevent a marriage below their social standing. Unlike the patriarchal Manav, Sunny openly respects Ayesha's fierce independence, and the two find themselves reviving their repressed romantic feelings.
Neelam witnesses Kamal flirting with a female guest, driving her to confront her own long-standing compliance in tolerating his historical infidelities for social prestige. Ayesha, overwhelmed by her environment, confronts Sunny regarding their past, culminating in a sudden, passionate kiss. To buy time, Kabir and Noorie construct a deceptive, fake engagement plan designed to placate their families while allowing Noorie to sneak around with Rana. However, when Farah discovers the impending arrangement, she terminates her relationship with Kabir. Shortly after, Kamal catches Noorie making out with Rana and realizes the prospective business merger is collapsing. The shock induces a severe physical panic that mimics a heart attack but is medically diagnosed as a acute case of gastritis.
The medical emergency triggers an explosive, cathartic confrontation within the Mehra family. Kabir aggressively denounces his parents' institutional hypocrisy, revealing his romance with Farah and his absolute refusal to assume control of AyKa. He highlights that Ayesha is the sibling possessed of genuine corporate acumen and urges them to support her desire for a divorce. When Kamal and Neelam initially resist, claiming that marriage is an absolute lifelong commitment, Kabir openly points out the hypocrisy of their own fraudulent partnership, noting that their social circle has been aware of Kamal’s serial adultery and Neelam’s desperate submission for years. Neelam breaks down, admitting she stayed only because her own family would have ostracized her. Deeply remorseful, Kamal begs for her forgiveness.
The family dynamic shifts permanently when Kamal attempts to facilitate a reconciliation between Ayesha and Manav. He witnesses firsthand the patronizing and emotionally abusive manner in which Manav treats his daughter. Intervening aggressively, Kamal fiercely warns Manav never to touch Ayesha again, ordering him and his mother to exit their lives permanently. Both parents apologize to Ayesha and formally sanction her divorce.
Learning that Farah has been fired from her cruise job for violating staff protocol regarding passenger relationships, Kabir races to locate her, only to find she has already been sent ashore. Backed by his family, Kabir publicly rejects the marriage alliance with Noorie, enabling her to freely pursue Rana. To catch up with Farah, Kabir recklessly leaps off the moving cruise ship into the ocean, trusting his family to orchestrate a rescue. Kamal, Neelam, and Ayesha commandeer a ship lifeboat with the assistance of their allies. Before descending, Ayesha asks Sunny if he will wait for her, to which he promises to do so indefinitely. The Mehras successfully pull Kabir from the water and speed toward the shore to intercept Farah, evading the pursuing ship security crew as a unified, genuinely happy family.
Cast The cast is listed below:
Production
Development
When Excel Entertainment announced its upcoming films in March 2012, one of them was Zoya Akhtar's next film following Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011). It was reported that she was working on a script and that filming was due to start in December 2012. Akhtar dismissed the reports, saying she was yet to start writing her next script. In May that year, media reports suggested Akhtar was already writing her next film. That July, it was reported the script was about siblings partially based on Akhtar and her brother Farhan Akhtar. Farhan Akhtar later denied reports of the film being autobiographical, saying it had nothing to do with their real life relationship and that it is entirely a work of fiction. In November 2012, Akhtar said she was still writing the script and that the film was a family drama.
Akhtar co-wrote the screenplay with her long-time friend and collaborator Reema Kagti. Akhtar had always aspired to make a family drama with a brother-sister relationship at its core. She felt such topics not been well represented in Indian films, and that the brother-sister relationship bond has always been shown "wrapped in rituals" and never portrayed as it really is. She believed the theme of brother-sister relationships "generally have cheesy representations. They are never at ease. This is one of the most important relationships in the world because nobody else shares your parents. I wanted to show that relationship in Dil Dhadakne Do." Akhtar also wanted to showcase the quirkiness of a dysfunctional family, with different layers to each family member, saying, "the beauty of families lies in their flaws".
When asked whether the film had any similarities with her own life and family, she said it had none and that the only thing common to herself and the film's characters was the bond between her and her brother; all their problems and conflicts were unalike. Akhtar said the film was a partly fictionalised version of people around her, such as her friends and their families, and her observations from literature and news articles. Kagti and Akhtar revealed that some of their material came from observing people of Delhi during their friends' back-to-back, elite-class wedding parties as they were finishing the script; they made notes about people's behaviour and demeanour, and incorporated these into their script. After finalising the characters, they felt something was missing, so they added Pluto, the family dog, as an observer. The completed film has 25 characters and a dog.
When asked about interweaving travel in the narrative, Akhtar said she and Kagti wanted a device to bring all the characters—the entire family—together. She said the film could have been set anywhere, such as a hill station, but they chose to set it on a cruise ship because the characters would not be able to leave. Akhtar called it a metaphor for the bigger journey that every family undertakes; the characters are stuck together on a ship in the middle of an ocean and could not leave if they wanted to. The film's title Dil Dhadakne Do was chosen because Akhtar wanted a catchy, easily identifiable title; it makes a reference to an eponymous song, featured on the soundtrack and in the opening credits of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.
Casting and characters During the initial scripting phase, in May 2012, media reports suggested cousins Kareena Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor had been approached to play the siblings and had accepted the parts. In late December 2012, Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif joined the cast to play the Kapoors' characters' love interests respectively. In June 2013, Ranbir Kapoor dropped out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with his other projects; he was replaced by Ranveer Singh. It was then reported that after her cousin dropped out, Kareena Kapoor was having second thoughts about appearing in the film; the opportunity to act alongside her cousin had been the main attraction for her. She left the production later that month, saying she could not leave her family for the required three months and calling her decision "her loss". In late June 2013, Akhtar approached Priyanka Chopra to part that role, and Chopra accepted. In October, Anil Kapoor was confirmed to play the role of Chopra and Singh's father in the film. It was also reported that Dimple Kapadia could possibly play his wife, but this was not to be.
In December 2013, Farhan Akhtar confirmed he was playing a crucial role in his sister's film. In January 2014, Anushka Sharma was cast for the role of Singh's love interest. Madhuri Dixit, Tabu and Raveena Tandon were all approached to play Chopra and Singh's mother in the film; although they liked the part, all of them turned down the role because they did not want to play a mother. Akhtar later approached Shefali Shah for the part, which she accepted. Newcomer Ridhima Sud joined the cast in June 2014. A few days later, Rahul Bose was cast to play the role of Manav (Chopra's husband) in the film. Zarina Wahab joined the cast to play Chopra's mother-in-law. Parmeet Sethi was later cast in a supporting role.