REVIEW 303: HAPPY ENDING

Release date (India):	November 21, 2014
Director:	Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK
Cast: Language:	Saif Ali Khan, Ileana D’Cruz, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Govinda, Preity Zinta, Guest appearance: Kareena Kapoor Khan Hindi and English

Happy Ending is a romcom that aims to deconstruct romcoms. It comes armed with the sort of understated humour we don’t get enough from Bollywood. Too often we assume that laughter, loudness and mindlessness are inextricably linked. Well, firstly, inoffensive mindlessness can be enjoyable unless it becomes the only available option. Second, the assumption itself is wrong. Happy Ending, for instance, elicits a steady stream of laughs throughout its two-and-a-quarter hours of running time, but it is certainly not mindless – despite its flawed screenplay – nor is it loud. The film is sweet, comical and harmless enough to tide over its own failings.

While telling us the story of Yudi Jaitley, the film also takes potshots at formulaic romantic comedies in literature and mainstream Bollywood. Yudi (Saif Ali Khan) is an over-grown baby living in California, a writer who has lived off his one bestselling novel for five-and-a-half years now. It’s got him fame, money and girls, which is all he wants from life.

Like the characters Saif has played in a number of films, Yudi is an easygoing, commitment-phobic flirt, unaware of his vulnerabilities. By the time we meet him at the start of this film, his bank balance is running out, that first book has faded from public memory and his car is being towed away by creditors. He has failed to deliver his second manuscript to his publishers who are now busy with their hot new acquisition, a young India-based writer of romances called Aanchal Reddy (Ileana D’Cruz) who is currently on a book promotion tour of the US.

To save Yudi from bankruptcy, his agent gets him a contract with the middle-aged Bollywood superstar Armaan (Govinda) who wants him to whip up a screenplay bringing together the best of Bollywood and Hollywood. The brief: plagiarise without qualms. Yudi cannot write romances, so he begins to pursue Aanchal for inspiration. As he courts her and simultaneously struggles with his writing, Happy Ending embarks on its dissection of romcom formulae.

A similar dissection of this film’s screenplay is telling. Happy Ending is unrelentingly amusing and offers occasional wisdom, but leaves many questions unanswered. For a start, swallowing Yudi and Aanchal’s success requires a stretch of the imagination because of the setting. How many Indian writers of light English fiction (whether US- or India-based) have achieved stardom in the US? It’s one thing for the story to offer us one, but two within a span of 5-6 years? Aanchal is presented as an emerging celebrity but Yudi is somewhat in the mould of Richard Castle from the teleserial Castle. It’s not an impossible situation, it’s just improbable as of now, which makes you wonder why the film couldn’t have simply been set in Delhi or Mumbai?

Armaan is held up as a mirror to Bollywood’s eccentricities. Well, if Armaan wanting little Alia Bhatt to be the heroine of his film-within-this-film is a haha moment, consider the implications of the casting of Happy Ending. Ageing bachelors with a wandering eye do exist, so I’m not questioning the decision to have Saif playing Yudi. What though necessitated the casting of Ileana, who is nearly two decades Saif’s junior, as Aanchal? The question raises its head further because Preity Zinta appears in a small role in the film. She’s as sweet-looking, likeable and talented as ever, is far closer to Saif’s age than Ileana, was lovely opposite him in Kal Ho Naa Ho, and there’s no logical reason why she couldn’t have played Aanchal – except that Happy Ending is made in a misogynistic industry that retires women past a certain age.

That being said, Saif’s comic timing remains one  of his strengths though I do wish he would cut his hair, gel it less and lose some weight. Also, his dialogue delivery lacks clarity in his second avatar in the film as a paunchy, bespectacled, sloppy chap who is Yudi’s inner voice. Ileana is a natural before the camera, has a pleasant screen presence and is absolutely gorgeous.

The film’s four satellite characters are all played by interesting actors who get varying treatment from the writers. Ranvir Shorey excels as Yudi’s chaddi buddy Montu who is stuck in a miserable marriage. Kalki Koechlin as Yudi’s clingy girlfriend Vishakha is adequate, though the screenplay seems to repeatedly forget her existence; Vishakha doesn’t exit and enter the stage smoothly, but pops up and out instead, disappearing from Yudi’s consciousness in between.

The stars of the supporting cast though are Preity and veteran Govinda who owns the screen every time he is within sight. His Armaan is hilarious. As he moves to G Phaad Ke, you can’t help but notice with a touch of emotion that the waistline is wider than it used to be, the limbs are perhaps not as elastic as they once were, but boy oh boy, he still dances with every cell of his being! The best-written character on the sidelines of Yudi and Aanchal’s romance though is his ex who is now married and a mother of triplets. It’s hard not to feel a touch of emotion too watching Preity in that role which has been termed a guest appearance in the credits, no doubt in deference to the superstardom the actress once enjoyed before the industry cruelly discarded her.

Sachin-Jigar’s songs are entertaining, with lyrics as quirky, for the most part, as Happy Ending aims at being. Visually too this is an eye-pleasing experience. Oddly enough, considering the title, the film’s weakest point is its ending. Though the girl remains consistently unconventional and challenging to the man, the climax lacks panache. As unconventional romcom endings go, Bollywood is yet to better Shakun Batra’s Ek Main aur Ekk Tu from 2012.

Directors Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, who helmed 2011’s fantastic Shor In The City, have a flair for low-key storytelling which is why they pull off this film despite its issues. It helps that though they are spoofing romcoms, their tone is not mocking. Besides, they acknowledge through the voice of Armaan, that lofty ideals notwithstanding, cliches do succeed. Happy Ending is sadly not as wacky as it could have been, nor is its effort to deconstruct romcoms particularly effective or as clever and sharp as it wants to be. However, it’s genuinely funny and unobjectionable, which makes it easy to forgive the film its many shortcomings. I was conscious of all my grievances while watching it, but I couldn’t help laughing non-stop all the same.

Rating (out of five): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	136 minutes

Posters courtesy:

Effective Communication and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Ending_(film)

Videos courtesy: The Glitch

G Phaad Ke video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5UK_bAOsEc

Jaise Mera Tu video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBrXzw6xrXg&list=UUX52tYZiEh_mHoFja3Veciw

Haseena Tu Kameena Main video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoNqHH6toDI&list=UUX52tYZiEh_mHoFja3Veciw

Mileya Mileya video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDtvoZAHVTY&list=UUX52tYZiEh_mHoFja3Veciw

Paaji Tussi Such A Pussycat remix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zb4veLzMJQ

REVIEW 301: KILL/DIL

Release date (India):	November 14, 2014
Director:	Shaad Ali
Cast: Language:	Ranveer Singh, Ali Zafar, Parineeti Chopra, Govinda Hindi

The way a child turns out is determined not by where he is born but by where he is brought up. As Ranveer Singh’s Dev records these words for a video being shot by his friend Tutu (Ali Zafar) in one of Kill/Dil’s earliest scenes, it becomes clear that this film is about the eternal nature-versus-nurture debate. Minutes later, when these two amoral professional sharpshooters first encounter the beautiful Disha (Parineeti Chopra) at a nightclub, and we see interest igniting in Dev’s eyes, we know too that this film will go on to be about second chances in life and about people living beyond the margins of respectable society but straining to enter hallowed circles.

These themes have been dealt with repeatedly by Hindi cinema, world cinema, theatre and most other art forms, but it matters not at that point because Kill/Dil starts off with such promise. Besides, isn’t it natural to expect an unexpected new take from Shaad Ali, the director who earlier gave us the memorable Saathiya (2002) starring Rani Mukerji and Vivek Oberoi and 2005’s box-office conqueror Bunty Aur Babli with Rani, Abhishek and Amitabh Bachchan?

In the first half hour, the narrative of Kill/Dil is crisp and to the point, events unfold without a second wasted, Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Jim Satya’s lovely background score seems designed to seep into our bloodstreams and invade our heartbeats, the dialogues are replete with understated humour, Ranveer’s comic timing is in full flow, the stylised storytelling in cowboy Western mode is accompanied by a deliberate theatricality that makes it appealingly unconventional, and the interesting casting (especially the presence of Govinda) holds out great possibilities.

Shortly thereafter though, these elements start spluttering under the strain of a screenplay offering little that’s new in terms of story or point of view, nothing that’s not already been said all the way from Yash Raj Films (YRF) founder Yash Chopra’s own Deewaar (1975) to YRF’s Gunday (2014). So familiar is Dev and Tutu’s saga that I almost expected Arjun Kapoor to saunter on to the screen and replace Ali Zafar at some point. Ranveer and Arjun had starred as orphans who grow up to be best buddies and mafia dons in Gunday. In Kill/Dil, Ranveer and Ali play best buddies and career killers working for the gangster Bhaiyyaji (Govinda) who had rescued them when they were abandoned in a garbage dump as babies. Gunday was unremarkable on most fronts, but it had more verve than Kill/Dil, which seems to have lost interest in itself somewhere along the way.

It also appears as though Shaad lost interest in Ali Zafar or Ali lost interest in the film at some point. After the initial half hour, Dev dominates every frame he shares with Tutu, not only because he is a slightly more important character, and not only because of Ranveer’s eternal zest for his work, but also because he comes across as being far more invested in this particular role than his male co-star. Even the camerawork and choreography appear designed to somehow relegate Tutu to the margins while giving Dev and later Dev+Disha centre stage, which is a pity because anyone who saw Ali moving to Dhichkyaoon dhum dhum in David Dhawan’s Chashme Baddoor can tell you that the man enjoys a good dance when he is in the mood.

On behalf of womankind, I’d also like to register a complaint against the film’s writing team for having given Tutu so few dialogues. We can argue over Ali’s performances in the past, but one thing is beyond debate: his Hindi diction is enough to make any female Earthling go weak in the knees. It’s almost a crime then to cast him in a Hindi film and give him so little to say.

Another protest must be registered against choreographer Ganesh Acharya, who gets to work in Kill/Dil with one of the greatest dancers in the history of Hindi cinema – Govinda – but fails to throw him the kind of mind-blowing challenges one would expect. That Govinda still has the moves is evident from even the little that he gets to do here, but the pulsating beats of Bol beliya and the title track had potential that Acharya does not fully tap.

However, the biggest betrayal by this film is the manner in which the screenplay under-utilises Govinda’s formidable acting talent which, in any case, has been sadly overshadowed in his filmography all these years by the many crappy films he has chosen to do. To reduce him to a virtual cameo after allowing him to dominate the film’s trailers is completely inexcusable.

With Govinda and Ali on the sidelines, it is then left to the charismatic young Ranveer and Parineeti to carry the film on their shoulders. Both stars give it their best, but are helpless at the hands of the overall lifelessness of the project after its initial sparkle.

In the end, what one is left with is the memory of some really neat, fun songs by Team Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Gulzar, the thought that if Ranveer can immerse himself so enthusiastically even in this half-baked film then he fully deserves every iota of his current stardom, the hope that the talented Ms Dancing Eyes Parineeti’s recent misfortunes at the box-office will not rule her out of the reckoning in Bollywood…and regret. So much regret.   

If Shaad had summoned up half as much passion for this project as Ranveer and Parineeti expend on it, Kill/Dil would not have felt like the listless, criminal waste of amazing resources that it is.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	127 minutes

Poster courtesy: Yash Raj Films

MOLESTATION AS ROMANCE IN BOLLYWOOD / FILM FATALE: COLUMN PUBLISHED IN HINDU BUSINESSLINE

MOLESTERS OR HEROES?

Salman Khan in Kick and Akshay Kumar in Holiday continue the Bollywood tradition of sexually harassing their heroines under the guise of humour and romance

He lifts up her skirt with his teeth and follows her, surrounded by a group of men. Is he the obscure scum of the streets? No, he is Devi, the protagonist of the film Kick currently playing in theatres. She is the heroine Shaina. And those other men are dancers accompanying the lead pair during the song Jumme ki raat. When Shaina realises what Devi is up to, she briefly shows annoyance. But hey, he’s the hero, not the designated villain of the formulaic template, so of course a few shots later she is dancing with him. You see, staying angry for long is not in the script if the man who lifted your skirt without permission is played by Salman Khan.

Sexual harassment, did you say? Not in the eyes of mainstream Bollywood where molesting a woman is considered cute, sweet and the epitome of courtship, if the molester is the hero of the film.

Khan is not the only male star practised in the art of mistreating women on screen under the guise of humour and romance. In this year’s Holiday, Akshay Kumar’s character Virat aggressively pursues an uninterested Saiba (Sonakshi Sinha). One day, he sees her at a traffic signal, positions his motorbike’s mirror to catch her reflection and kisses it, revelling in her outrage when she spots him. The song Tu hi to hai is filmed on Virat unrelentingly following Saiba, even grabbing the unwilling girl and kissing her. Despite her anger at his behaviour, she is soon shown falling for him.

From roughing up the heroine in Holiday to joking about rape in Tees Maar Khan, from calling the girl “maal” (hot stuff) in Rowdy Rathore to pinching her waist with fingers that act of their own accord, Kumar has done it all. His irrepressible digits in Rowdy Rathore seem designed to assure the male audience that they cannot be held responsible for sexual misdemeanours; a metaphor for boys as helpless testosterone-ridden creatures who cannot help themselves when faced with female beauty. Or as Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav infamously said with reference to rape: “Boys will be boys. Mistakes happen.”

Despite these repugnant examples, it’s only fair to point out that Bollywood’s molester heroes are no longer as common as they once were. When the physically invincible men of the ’70s and ’80s gave way to the gentler romantic hero of the mid-’90s, harassment as courtship did not disappear from Hindi films but it did decline.

In the glory days of Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan, gaining a woman’s affections by badgering her was the norm. In the 1975 classic Sholay, Veeru (Dharmendra) gropes an evidently uncomfortable Basanti (Hema Malini) while teaching her how to shoot. In an endorsement of harassment as the way to a woman’s heart, at one point he even sings, “Koi haseena jab rootth jaati hai, aur bhi haseen ho jaati hai (A woman’s beauty is enhanced when she sulks)” — an initially enraged Basanti is in love by the end of the song.

The cleverest way of appeasing audience misogyny has been to show a woman being ambiguous about her consent. Hum in 1991 comes to mind. Through the song Jumma chumma de de, when Tiger (Bachchan) demands the kiss she promised him, Jumma (Kimi Katkar) has irritation written on her face but her body speaks another language. She stands on a table, lifts up her skirt and thrusts her groin at Tiger gawking at her from below. Can there be a more overt representation of a woman’s desire for sexual intercourse? The she-asked-for-it defence for the subsequent treatment of Jumma is already written into the scene.

Sometimes, the hero’s sexual harassment has been projected as playfulness. Sometimes it has been given the form of undisguised hostility. In Karz Chukana Hai (1991), model scout Radha (Juhi Chawla) photographs Ravi (Govinda) bathing. He takes revenge by sneaking into her bathroom to shoot her showering, and posts her nude pictures on their college bulletin board. Note how the script had the woman indulging in reprehensible — even if highly improbable — behaviour that could be deemed his ‘provocation’.

Remember though that the hero is both protector and molester. Devi in Kick bashes up goons harassing women, just moments after he himself is shown pestering an unresponsive Shaina. Perhaps the logic is that she is marked out for him, therefore he has a right to do as he pleases with her. Or as Shahid Kapoor’s Vishwas sings to Kajal (Ileana D’Cruz) in Phata Poster Nikhla Hero: “Khali peeli khali peeli rokne ka nahin. Tera peecchha karoon toh tokne ka nahin… Hai tujhpe right mera (Don’t unnecessarily object when I chase you… I have a right over you).” In a society that echoes this view of a man’s ‘right’ over ‘his woman’, imagine the extreme optimism of anti-rape campaigners who persist in making an issue of marital rape.

Over the years, Bollywood has justified such films by pointing out that they reflect reality. Well, shouldn’t cinema condemn rather than glorify regressive realities? No doubt bad films will not turn good men into molesters overnight, but considering the extent of gender segregation in vast sections of Indian society, this irresponsible portrayal of man-woman relations has the potential to perpetuate existing misconceptions and indoctrinate impressionable youngsters who lack guidance in these matters at home and school. Dear Khans and Kumars, do you hear us?

(Anna M.M. Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column by Anna M.M. Vetticad was first published in The Hindu Businessline on August 2, 2014)

Photographs courtesy: 

(a) Hum – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hum_(film)

(b) Holiday – https://www.facebook.com/FilmHoliday

(c) Kick – https://www.facebook.com/GetYourKick

Note: These photographs were not used in The Hindu Businessline