Be Happy review: Abhishek Bachchan, who did such a solid job being a dad-to-a-daughter in I Want To Talk, comes off more stolid in Be Happy, essentially because the plot is more in service to the dancing and the competing than to showing us the lives these characters live.
Ooty-based schoolgirl Dhara (Inayat Verma) is happiest when dancing. Single parent Shiv (Abhishek Bachchan) loves her to bits, but is not mad about her wanting to go off to Mumbai to focus on her moves, even when well-known dancer-teacher (Nora Fatehi) dangles an inducement to attend her sought-after academy.
Things start falling into place, and then one day, trouble strikes. Can sheer will and determination win the day? Can dreams really come true?
The title is pithy, urging one to tack a ‘don’t worry’ ahead of it. But the film, overall, suffers from that usual good premise-flat execution thing.
Verma is a sparkler, lighting up the screen. And Bachchan, who did such a solid job being a dad-to-a-daughter in ‘I Want To Talk’, comes off more stolid here, essentially because the plot is more in service to the dancing and the competing, very reality show-like, than to showing us, in any kind of depth, the lives these characters live.
Nora Fatehi, so agile on the floor, shows that acting is work for her. Nassar, such a reliable performer, is stuck in a predictable supporting grandpa act; Harleen Sethi has a too-brief part as Dhara’s mom. And Johnny Lever’s broad comedy track is terrible. The characters speak in dialogues, and you wish this was a better film.