Happy New Year: Shah Rukh is the king of hearts, and Farah the queen of fun
At one point in Happy New Year when Team India is doing well in something called the World Dance Championship despite having two left feet, a Narendra Modi lookalike pops up on TV screens, congratulating them, and saying: "Achche din aa gaye hain." It's this sort of impish humour that runs through Shah Rukh Khan's new entertainer. Cheerfully plagiarising Bollywood movies and shamelessly coasting on Shah Rukh Khan's charisma, the film sets up an alternative vision of India. This is an India which is imperfect, where lawyers can be bought, and girls can be forced into dancing in bars for lack of opportunities; where former soldiers can end up doing the fireworks on film sets; and joblessness can still be the dominant state of the young, but with courage, anything is possible. This is an India where Olympic medals are hard to come by and only loser films are sent to the Oscars. An India which thinks sushi is a pakoda and where Parsi Hindi is still the butt of all jokes. An India where women with no opportunities still end up dancing in bars and learning "the English" is still a pipedream.
Yet, Indiawale can win hearts, by using the mind. Indiawale can dance badly and still win a world competition despite not having the discipline of joyless Koreans. Indiawale can outwit the powerful rich villain using the talents of a little hacker boy. Indiawale can turn barfing into a weapon of mass destruction.
Shah Rukh has for many years ceased to be just an actor. He is a businessman, a sportsman, a father, every NRI's favourite Indian, every middle class Indian's aspiration. In 22 years on screen, he has played so many memorable characters that when Deepika Padukone (who plays bar dancer Mohini - yes as in Madhuri Dixit's character in Tezaab - everything is a broad hint in this film) reprises his famous seven-minute speech from Chak De India, a collective gurgle goes up in the hall; when a crowd wearing Shah Rukh masks stretches out their arms, everyone giggles; and when he says Main Hoo Na, the girls sigh.
The entire movie is a gigantic nudge and a very obvious wink to an audience that has grown up on Shah Rukh's cinema. As the actor inches towards his half century, he often seems less popular than Salman Khan, and less of a risk taker than Aamir Khan, but he has always been more loved for being himself. He has had temper outbursts which he has regretted - whether it was at Wankhede Stadium or at the Zee awards where he had a famous run-in with a then powerful Amar Singh. He has got into trouble for speaking his mind on his religion. He has found himself at war with one-time best friends. He has fielded rumours of being gay and then of having affairs with his co-stars (female).
He smokes too much, curses too much, has too much money (we think), and sleeps too little. We in India and everywhere else where there are Indians know too much about him already - and yet at the end of the three-hour-long Happy New Year, a young woman ahead of me in the queue towards the exit was complaining that the end credits had been cut - "I so wanted to see AbRam (for those who don't live on earth, that is his youngest son)".
Farah Khan is a wise filmmaker and knows she only has to mine the endless depths of Shah Rukh-mania for three hours of unadulterated fun, and she manages quite admirably. In addition, she peppers it with lots of cultural references to keep it current - the inevitable Babaji ka thullu from Kapil Sharma's Comedy Nights, the Chetan Bhagat-like desperation to learn English, even the sly joke at her brother Sajid's expense. He does a cameo in the movie, directing a film called Ha Ha Hee Hee.
Loud, large, with Diwali lights on, this is a movie that yet keeps it simple. Respect for women, love for the nation (har dil main tiranga rehta hai, says Shah Rukh at one point), fraternal affection, and avenging an absent father. All served with the relish of a few of our favourite films. Ah yes, and a smidgeon of politically correct women empowerment - Deepika Padukone's name precedes Shah Rukh's in the credits as in Chennai Express, the director is a woman, and the producer, Shah Rukh's wife, Gauri.What more do Indiawale need?