Be Happy Review: Remo D'Souza's Obsession with Making ABCD 4 After Street Dancer 3D's Flop Run

RATING - ⭐ ⭐ 2/5*

Be Happy Review Movie Talkies:

Be Happy is a film that pretends to be about "happiness," but is actually Remo sir's substitute for ABCD 4, which was never made after the flop run of Street Dancer 3D. The worst aspect of the film is that a 9-year-old girl acts better than Nora Fatehi and Nassar sir, and interestingly, that’s also the best part of the film.

Be Happy Story:

Be Happy follows a little girl, Dhara (Inayat Verma), who wants to pursue a career in dancing, but her banker father, Shiv (Abhishek Bachchan), wants her to keep dance as a hobby and focus on her studies for a better career. Maggie (Nora Fatehi) runs a dancing academy and is impressed by Dhara's amazing dancing skills. After a few hiccups, she manages to take Dhara under her wing and eventually helps her get selected for a dancing reality show. Just when everything seems to be going well for Dhara and her father, fate plays a dark game and puts a halt to their hopes. Will they be able to fight it?

Be Happy Movie Review:

Similar to ABCD 2 and Street Dancer 3D, Remo's artificial setup of dance sequences ruins the organic feel in this film. It's better to watch any reality show's extended preview episode before the grand finale than to watch this movie. However, it does evoke emotion by the end, even though the climax is highly superficial. The father-daughter duo delivers a whole performance without rehearsals. Ab bolo? Be Happy isn't clever in such situations, and there are many like this. The character of Johnny Lever was entirely out of place, and the angle of Maggie and Shiv as a soon-to-be couple felt soulless. The kids behaved beyond their ages, while the adults acted like children. There’s much more to take a dig at, but the film ultimately gets the “spotlight” at the end, making us go ahead with the full use of a pair of tissues.

Be Happy Performances:

Performance-wise, Inaayat Verma, despite being a child artist, emerged as the best actor among the entire cast. As I mentioned, she acts beyond her age despite a moderate IQ level in academics (49.8% or something), as if she were a completely mature and intelligent child. Abhishek Bachchan was good, and Nassar was watchable—conditions apply. Nora Fatehi looks sexy in her dance attire, and her moves are killer, but her acting skills will kill you. The time has come for her to focus on expressions and dialogue delivery because it becomes predictably irritating to listen to her foreign accent when she delivers Hindi dialogues. Hopefully, she'll improve in the future, or better yet, she should continue dancing because she is indeed a fantastic dancer. There is a large supporting cast that hasn't done anything worth mentioning here, so I'll skip it.

Thematic similarities were expected, but D'Souza's setup and storytelling have not really progressed over the years. The technical aspects hardly make any difference, and the music adds extra boredom. Either Be Happy didn't truly understand its own message, or it failed to explore it well on screen. The idea of happiness sounded better at the start, but by the time it reached its finale, it became tedious and quite illogical. Remo D'Souza's vision for dance movies needs improvement, but I don't think it will make any difference–it hasn't in Hollywood, so Bollywood is far behind. Be Happy still has those "be sad" moments that will make you cry, but the rest of the show, much like Dhara's age, is CHILDISH.