'Happy Ending': Flawed But Feisty And Relevant

BENGALURU: Film: "Happy Ending"; Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Ileana D'Cruz, Govinda, Kalki Koechlin, Ranveer Shorey; Director: Raj Nidimoru/Krishna D.K.; Rating: ****

Okay, so in how many ways do we get to see the Modern Indian Bollywood Hero (MIBH) play the commitment-phobic Casanova? See that guy out there. We've seen him many times before, and played by Saif Ali Khan many times. Somehow for all its sins of redundancy, "Happy Ending" still manages to keep the narrative in a ceaseless state of sparkle.

Saif is that kind of an actor. He brings a shuffling nervous energy to each frame. He never does the same thing in exactly the same way twice. This is what keeps him going as the king of the rom-com. Think "Hum Tum". Think "Dil Chahta Hai". Think "Cocktail". Think "Salaam Namaste"...

In fact, Preity Zinta shows up in a disarming cameo as one of the women the MIBH has dumped in the past.

They continue to share a healthy relationship where bitterness has no place. In fact, one of the film's most endearing episodes is when Preity shows up at Saif's place with her brood of children after a fight with her husband. Dig out dependability in a man who has dumped you? Nice!

This is the kind of resolvable urbane conflict that "Happy Ending" excels at. There are no big crises in the script to sort out. As Saif tells Kareena Kapoor (trying hard to look involved) in the film's prologue, "There is no depth in me. What you see is what you get". Amen. Saif again plays the jerk with a roving eye with a goofy panache that is cartoonish in its directness. He strips his hero of all vanity and lets him roam naked in the wilderness.

His Yudi is a selfish, horny, unethical bastard. And we don't see him make much of an effort to hide it. For a large part of the narration, we see Saif's character move across acres of self seeking pleasure hood, revelling in an almost a kind of masturbatory courtship where the other partner's feelings are ruthless decimated.

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