Saturday, November 22, 2014
Happy Ending
No Love, Actually
So cool are the makers of this film trying to be that they title it
(nudge-wink) Happy Ending. And add
songs that go G Phad Ke, Tu Haseena Main Kameena and Paaji You Are Such a Pussycat. That’s not cool, dude, it’s desperate and
borderline odious.
So, in Raj
Nidimoru and Krishna DK’s film, set in Los Angeles, Saif Ali Khan plays the
commitment phobic charmer (again!) Yudi, who dumps a succession of girlfriends
the minute they say “I Love You” to him. Only dentist Vishakha (Kalki Koechlin)
is thick-skinned enough to ignore the break-up hints.
By profession, Yudi is a writer, with one
bestseller behind him that has kept him in duplex apartment, swank convertible,
multiple girlfriends and constant partying kind of lifestyle for several
years. Really? How unbelievable is that!
Now the money has run out, he can’t write another line and his agent is fed-up.
He can’t find another job either? How dumb is he?
Then, he finds that the writer who ousted him
from the publisher’s favourite position, is Aanchal (Ileana D’Cruz) who writes
romantic books so cheesy, they wouldn’t go beyond the editor’s desk, leave
aside fetch the Mumbai girl a reading tour of the US. (Are all writers sniggering yet?)
Yudi is pleased to learn that Aanchal is
smart enough to laugh at her own crappy books and treats romance and
happily-ever-afters with as much cynicism as he does. So, what does he do? He falls in love with her.
While his very boring love story is plodding
on, there comes in the only saving grace of this movie—Govinda, as a Bollywood
star, who has captured the single screen market, and now wants to make it to
the multiplex. He wants a writer to come up with a “kickass romedy” in which he
can romance a young actress and show off his surgically acquired six-pack abs.
In the few minutes of screen time that he gets Govinda wipes the floor with
everybody in the frame with him.
There was a story in there about a generation
that refuses to grow out of a state of perpetual adolescence -- Yudi’s alter ego is the gross Yogi, who
lounges around all day. Why not make a film that conveys the commitment-is-hell
point of view with some wit and humour? There was a chance to create a truly
different leading lady, but the directors can’t get that right either.
Forget being a ‘comedy about romantic
comedies’ Happy Ending just about manages to raise a few laughs, thanks to
Govinda and dialogue writer Hussain Dalal.
Labels: Cinemaah
