Tag Archives: Inayat Verma

Movie Review: Be Happy (2025)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Be Happy on Amazon Prime

The problem with writer-director Remo D’Souza’s Be Happy is that he doesn’t trust his audience to connect emotionally with his characters.

That shouldn’t be a concern in this father-daughter story. Humans have evolved to feel protective of children, so the second cute kid Dhara (Inayat Verma) shows up, we’re ready to care about her.

Dhara’s an elementary schooler who taught herself to dance by watching videos of celebrity choreographer Maggie (Nora Fatehi). Dhara and her maternal grandfather Nadar (Nassar) binge dance competition shows in the Ooty home they share with Dhara’s father Shiv (Abhishek Bachchan).

It’s been eight years since Dhara’s mother Rohini (Harleen Sethi) died. In that time, Shiv has handled the bulk of the parenting responsibilities, yet he is constantly surprised by things that happen in Dhara’s life. She wins her school’s dance competition, the prize for which is a spot at Maggie’s dance academy in Mumbai. This prize is news to Shiv, who barely seems aware of how important dancing is to Dhara. He refuses the offer, insulting Maggie in the process.

All of the ups and downs Dhara experiences are punctuated with a heavy-handed musical score that practically shouts the little girl’s emotional state at the audience. Verma is a capable young actor — she and Bachchan previously shared a subplot in the Netflix movie Ludo — so it’s not like she needs the help. I suspect anyone who doesn’t feel sad when a kid feels sad or happy when they feel happy isn’t paying attention in the first place.

Shiv relents, and he and Dhara make a temporary move to Mumbai. Under Maggie’s tutelage, Dhara earns a spot in a TV dance competition for kids. She advances to the round where the young dancers are supposed to perform a number with a family member, a development which once again catches Shiv by surprise.

This father-daughter dance is one of the few performances for which we are shown the choreography process, wherein beautiful Maggie teaches stiff Shiv to loosen up. Otherwise, the performance rounds are shown one right after the other, making it seem as though Dhara and Maggie’s other young student dancer Prem (Sanchit Chanana) are coming up with their routines on the fly. Showing them learn and struggle through the choreography process is a missed opportunity for character development.

But that gets to one of the film’s other big problems: it’s not really about Dhara, even if she is the one driving the action. Her character development is limited because Be Happy is really about Shiv’s need to move on from his wife’s death. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but centering the male lead actor is predictable. Just because Bachchan is the most famous cast member doesn’t mean he’s the only one able to play a character we can empathize with.

Reducing Dhara to a prop in order to center Shiv doesn’t even pay off. The little girl helps to foster a romantic relationship between her father and Maggie, but Bachchan and Fatehi have zero chemistry. If there’s any science in their subplot, it’s mortuary science.

Be Happy might be D’Souza’s safest, most disappointing movie yet. He made better dance films with his ABCD series, and even A Flying Jatt had more to say about parent-child relationships than this. There’s little to be happy about here.

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Movie Review: Ludo (2020)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Ludo on Netflix

The movie Ludo uses its namesake board game as a metaphor for life, its characters one dice roll away from fortune or ruin. Writer-director Anurag Basu’s black comedy is beautifully made and laugh-out-loud funny.

Anyone who has played the games Aggravation, Sorry!, or Trouble is familiar with how Ludo works. Players from four different colored corners of the game board roll dice, moving their pieces around the board in the hopes of being the first to get all their pieces safely “home.” Basu assigns different characters to the colored corners, and they meet up with one another throughout the story. Right at the center is Sattu Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi), a hard-to-kill gangster with ties to all of them.

In the red corner is Sattu’s former right-hand man Bittu (Abhishek Bachchan), fresh out of prison and eager confront his old boss. Bittu charges in after a meeting between Sattu and the yellow corner’s Akash (Aditya Roy Kapur), who needs Sattu’s help removing a sex tape from the internet. The blue corner’s Rahul (Rohit Suresh Saraf) is at Sattu’s hideout as well, having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

An explosion sets the characters off in different directions. Rahul drives off with some of Sattu’s stolen cash and a cute, opportunistic nurse named Sheeja (Pearle Maaney). Akash also hits the road, joined by Shruti (Sanya Malhotra) the woman from the sex tape who’s due to marry someone else in a matter of days. Bittu’s plan to find a way back into the life of the wife who left him while he was in jail and the young daughter who doesn’t remember him is derailed when he meets another precocious little girl, Mini (Inayat Verma), who needs help faking her own kidnapping in order to get her distracted parents’ attention.

While all this is happening, the characters from the green corner are trying to get out of their own mess. Alu (Rajkummar Rao) has been in love with Pinky (Fatima Sana Shaikh) since childhood, although she never reciprocated his feelings. Pinky turns up with her baby to ask for Alu’s help getting her husband Manohar (Paritosh Tripathi) out of jail, where he languishes, wrongly accused of a murder committed by Sattu.

Director Basu doesn’t judge his characters for wanting what they want, even if what they want isn’t exactly good for them. Alu is the best example of this. He knows his one-sided devotion to Pinky gets him into trouble and keeps him perpetually single, but he’s miserable when she’s not around. Is it so bad for him to not want to feel awful?

Bittu’s story is the most complicated and emotional. He spent six years waiting to get back to his daughter — who was an infant when he went to prison — but she doesn’t know he exists. She thinks Bittu’s ex-wife’s new husband is her father. Spending time with Mini gives Bittu a chance to act in a fatherly role, making him question whether what he wants for himself is really what’s best for his daughter.

Bachchan’s performance when he’s playing Bittu the Gangster comes off as more pouty than menacing, but he’s terrific as Bittu the Dad. Little Inayat Verma is impossibly adorable, and she and Bachchan are so much fun together. Yet we know their relationship is only temporary. Almost all of Bittu’s options will leave him brokenhearted.

Given Pankaj Tripathi’s recent track record of stealing virtually every movie he’s in, Basu wisely put Tripathi in the middle of things from the start. His character’s introduction — dramatically exposing his inner thigh to pull a gun from a leg holster — is perfection. After the cute pairing of Bittu and Mini, Sattu is part of the film’s second best partnership. While he’s bedridden, Sattu forms a friendship with no-nonsense nurse Lata Kutty (Shalini Vatsa), one of the few people he can’t intimidate. It’s unexpected and delightful.

To keep his dark comedy from becoming too dark, Basu amplifies its other elements. Bright colors differentiate the storylines, but they also cheer up even violent scenes. Character closeups feel a little closer than normal. The excellent soundtrack and score by Pritam are prominent in the mix, setting the tone overtly. Ludo is loud, both aurally and visually, but it feels just right.

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