Unlike what the promotions would have us believe Happy Bhag Jayegi is not about Happy or Diana Penty who plays the lead character. Thankfully so. The sophisticated, westernised Penty hardly looks or behaves like the rooted Amritsari kudi that she is meant to be on screen. And it also requires way too much of a suspension of disbelief to imagine that a polished Penty could be dishing out yummy aaloo paranthas ( a significant ingredient in the film, mind you) . If in Bajrangi Bhaijaan the adorable little girl Shahida gets stuck in India and has to be taken back to Pakistan, here it’s Happy, on the run from her own wedding, who lands up in Lahore by mistake. The crucial difference is that Happy is far from adorable, just plain petulant and irritating. Throughout the film people keep talking about falling in love with Happy and one keeps wondering how anyone could do that. Quite like her, the man she is in love with, Guddu ( Ali Fazal) is also largely inconsequential.
It is Pakistan that is vital. What’s interesting is how Happy… is an Indian comedy that turns out to be more about our neighbour, in fact Pakistan is its strength. Of course, friends across the border may have an axe to grind in terms of the authenticity of depiction. But was that ever the intention of the makers? Much of the Pakistan depicted in the film takes off ( deliberately so) from several of their soaps and serials we have got to watch here in India. However, there can be little to crib and nitpick about if all those supposed ( and real) cross-border tensions can be made to dissolve in two hours or so with a few shared laughs and endless banter?
