Happy Ending review: One Govinda better than two Saif Ali Khans in this cliched rom-com

Here’s a Rs 100 crore question: If a film endorses all the cliches that it had initially set out to ridicule, is it still a satire? In Happy Ending, directors Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK start off spoofing Bollywood rom-coms, but well before interval, it becomes evident that their film is as predictable as the genre they’re mocking. But that doesn’t mean Happy Ending is without its charms. After all, who doesn’t like a love story? There is a famous line in Hitchcock’s Rear Window: “Every man’s ready to get married when the right girl comes along.” In Happy Ending, the right girl for Yudi (Saif Ali Khan) is Anchal (Ileana D’Cruz). This is not a spoiler. She is in every song, every poster, and she has the maximum number of costume changes. Yudi is an author, who in a last ditch effort to save his career has agreed to write a film script for a B-grade Bollywood actor, Armaan (Govinda). Anchal too is an author and has written a cheesy romance novel, titled “Crazy Love”. The boy-meets-girl scene happens at a book reading where Anchal is reading out a mushy excerpt of her book to an audience steadily slipping into deep slumber. Yudi’s agent had told him earlier that Anchal is the girl who has replaced him and bagged a three book deal from his publishers and he is adamant to find out, what makes her tick and come up with such  saccharine sweet love stories that which readers prefer. After a bit of snooping around, he finds out that Anchal too, much like himself doesn’t believe in love and voila! he has found another person in the world who is exactly like him. Happy Ending is Yudi and Anchal’s story and Yogi (Yudi’s twin brother also played by Khan) pops up every now and then, delivering words of wisdom. [caption id=“attachment_1814729” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Courtesy: Facebook[/caption] To Khan’s credit, despite a plot that can be summed up in one line and is as predictable as a Mills and Boon novel, he manages to make the film work. The actor plays a double role in the film: he plays both the flirtatious author Yudi and his brother Yogi, who is a jobless bum. He and the gorgeous D’Cruz have an easy camaraderie, but tragically for Happy Ending, the love story is just not convincing enough. Yudi and Anchal take a road trip through postcard worthy highways, play strip poker and write novels together on their laptops (because hey, that’s how authors fall in love, naturally), there is not one moment in all this when their attraction seems crackling. However, if the romance in this rom-com is half baked, thanks to Govinda, the comedy is intact. His Armaan pulls a Salman Khan-esque stunt in the film and it is hilarious. In one scene, we see him standing shirtless, with abs drawn on him with black marker. Later, we see him go under the knife to finally get that six pack ab. It is through Armaan that the filmmakers take potshots at Bollywood and these make up the most enjoyable parts of Happy Ending. It isn’t just Govinda, all the other ladies of the film – Kareena Kapoor, as the bitchy girlfriend who shows a finger to Yudi after he refuses her proposal, Preity Zinta as the supportive ex and friend Divya, and Kalki Koechlin, as the obsessive ex girlfriend, Vishakha who would go to any extent to make Yudi stay in her life— make a wonderful supporting cast. Ranvir Shorey, as the whiny friend trapped in a boring marriage, whose only source of adventure and entertainment is Yudi’s life, also does a brilliant job. However, despite all its cleverness, some excellent performances and great music, Happy Ending leaves you with a sense of deja vu. We’ve seen all this before and despite its efforts to be cooler than the Bollywood rom-coms of the ’90s, Happy Ending has all the same problems that made those films a drag.