Remo D’Souza Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.’s Be Happy is based on the philosophy that no matter what, one must learn to be happy.
Shiv (Abhishek Bachchan) is a single parent to his school-going daughter, Dhara (Inayat Verma). The two live with Shiv’s father-in-law (Nasser). Dhara is fond of dance but dad Shiv is not keen for her to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer. However, her burning passion makes Shiv relent. Dhara trains under Maggie (Nora Fatehi) in Bombay. She makes it to the finals of a talent hunt television show. However, calamity strikes when Dhara is diagnosed with a life-threatening ailment. Does she make it to the finals? How?
Remo D’Souza, Kanishka Singh Deo, Tushar Hiranandani and Chirag Garg have written a story which hardly offers novelty. Their screenplay mostly comprises predictable scenes. That’s not the only problem. The other problem is that the drama does not tug at the heart strings as the emotional scenes fail to move the viewers to tears. The proceedings mostly rely on tried and tested scenes because of which the drama doesn’t really rise above the ordinary. The pace is also slow. Another drawback is that there is no justification for several scenes. For instance, why is Shiv not keen on Dhara pursuing her dream? If the emotional scenes don’t shake the viewers, the light ones also don’t entertain too much. Dialogues (penned by Kanishka Singh Deo and Chirag Garg) are alright.
Abhishek Bachchan is good as Shiv. Inayat Verma impresses as Dhara. Nora Fatehi is alright as Maggie. Nasser lends fine support as Shiv’s father-in-law and Dhara’s maternal grandfather. Harleen Sethi is okay as Rohini. Rupali Krishnan makes her presence felt as Kusum. Mohammed Rameez has his moments as Sukhram. Anshuman Painully plays Jigar’s father ably. Pranjal Chaturvedi is alright as Jigar. Johny Lever has his moments as guard Gopi. Jay Bhanushali is impactful as the show host. Tejas Verma is good as Arjun. Sanchit Chanan is lovely as Prem. Punit J. Pathak (as judge), Elli Avrram (as judge) and Salman Yusuff Khan (as judge) lend good support. Sonali Bendre and Remo D’Souza (both as guest judges) lend star value.
Remo D’Souza’s direction is average. Harsh Upadhyay’s music lacks super-hit tunes. A film about dance should necessarily have had hit songs. Lyrics are okay. Rahul Shetty’s choreography is appropriate. Harsh Upadhyay’s background music is fairly nice. Vijay Kumar Arora’s cinematography is very good. Tanvi Leena Patil’s production designing is of a fine standard. Sherwin Bernard’s editing should’ve been tighter.
On the whole, Be Happy is an average fare. It is good that the film has premiered on an OTT platform. Had it been released in cinemas, it would’ve flopped.
Released on 14-3-’25 on Amazon Prime.