Pakistan Bans ‘Happy Bhag Jayegi’ Over Jinnah Portrait

The romcom is directed by Mudassar Aziz.

There are many sequences which seem to be either inspired or copied from other movies, that’s exactly where Happy Bhag Jayegi runs out of its uniqueness. Although the film is about three men who fall in love with a girl called Happy (one who’s madly in love with her, one who’s dying to marry her and the third one who’s smitten by her), there doesn’t seem to be anything about the girl that would drive men insane. This week, Happy Bhag Jayegi will definitely entertain the audience in a hilarious manner. “The censor board of Pakistan saw the film and they loved it”.

Finally here comes a positive sign for Happy Bhag Jayegi starring Diana Penty, Abhay Deol, Ali Fazal and Jimmy Shergill! The rest of the film includes Ahmed’s efforts to reunite the two star-crossed lovers, Bagga’s attempts to separate them, a kidnapping, a jealous fiance and all the usual staples in a movie about a runaway bride, with plenty of forced attempts at humour. How much you liked it, tell us! Sure, Penty’s shining personality rescues individual scenes as she knows how to sprinkle on the charm, but only when she has a good script like the one in Homi Adajania’s Cocktail. “There is some of it, but it is far too intermittent”, she adds. The Lahore of the film is lightly sketched (like the Karachi of Tere Bin Laden), with just enough detail to make the comedy seem rooted; yet it seems, to me at least, like a loving portrait.

The attractive Pakistani TV actress Momal Sheikh has done a decent job and is nearly certain to get more work assignments from Bollywood.

The producer went on to say that the board also “had issues with the policeman’s character in the film (played by Piyush Mishra)” for which they were not provided the reason. He tries to match make – all this after he has travelled all the way to a neighbouring country in search of his love! It’s high on comedy, romance and totally a feel good experience that you would love to take back home. Their collective enthusiasm renders the film’s lack of subtlety endearing and its gaps in narrative logic inconsequential. Thankfully, the delightful Penty nudges her character towards the just-plain-silly.

The writer is a film critic and has been reviewing films for over 15 years.