"Happy Days" : Missed Opportunity

[Vamsi Deepak]

For the last few weeks, my iTunes has played songs from a single album more than all other albums combined. And, the album is: "Happy Days". The reason it has become a hit with me is a very strong emotion that makes me (and I am sure many others I know) go back again and again: Nostalgia. My days start with the song - "Poddunna Legaali" ("Have to get up in the morning..." - a hip song on the day in the life of a local engineering student), and end with the mellow "Happy Days" (a beautiful song on the friendships and relations of college life). Anyways, this is not a music review. So, lets get to the movie...

It's the first time that a commercial Telugu movie has been released in the US earlier than in India. I was excited that for the first time I could call home and tell my friends and family an Indian movie review before they could tell me.

Happy Days is the story of the "happy days" of college life told through the lives of eight students - Madhu, Chandu, Rajesh, Tyson, Shankar, Appu, Sravanthi, and Appu (4 boys, 4 girls).  The movie starts with new engineering students going to their new college on the first day... and ends with them reminiscing the happy days with the principal on their last day. Sounds like a great movie... Ah,  finally a film about the journey than about dramatic endings (which is one of the trademarks of Telugu cinema!) The first half of the film is about the trials and tribulations that a first year engineering student goes through - and the second half is about the relationships that develop deeper in the rest of the three years. While the first half does justice to the dramatic first year with transitions and building relationships, the second half was a pure drag into their love lives intertwining with occasional college humor.

What do you think of when you think of your  college life?
Ragging, juniors vs seniors, friendships, relationships, sacrifices, college trips, last minute preparations, exam results, campus politics, sadist lecturers, sexy madams, unclear goals, dreams, ambition, nagging parents, introduction to porn... and so on and so forth.

What Shekar has done is connect all these core elements of college life through the love threads which form the basis of the movie. And, that's where my problem with the movie lies (which I will go into detail later). Ultimately what Shekar Kammula's "Happy Days" boils down to are four college love stories: love at first sight, friendship matures into love, love on hold and love failure. Everything else that happens in the film is secondary - and only aid to put context to these love threads.

Coming to the strengths of the movie... The dialogues are very well written - oozing with college humor and sensibilities. Characters are well defined - with all actors (most of them new) acting out really well. If one person stands out in all of them, its the role of Rajesh (played by Nikhil). Whenever he is on screen, the audience is in splits. The movie has also got a good balance of entertaining and heartwarming scenes. Some of my favorite scenes:
* Introductory ragging scenes
* Tyson storms into the college canteen courageously during the ragging season
* Many heartwarming scenes between Rajesh and Appu
* Many comedy scenes between Rajesh and the sexy teacher (Kamalini Mukherjee)
* Tyson and Sravanthi's separation scene
* When Chandu is upset about not learning anything in college, his principal encourages him saying that college life is not about achieving something, but to get fit for achieving something... and that the purposeful life starts now.
* Interview montage at the end

Sure, the film has ample doses of good humor, but if Shekar wants to invoke my college memories through these characters, sorry. My college days were not half as sexy. Sure, it was about making the best friends of my life. Sure, it was about learning some of the best lessons of my life. Sure, it was about star gazing. Sure, it was going through countless moments of confusion. Sure, it was about learning how to talk to a girl. Sure, it was about having crushes who become ex-crushes. Sure, it was about gossiping about those few emerging love stories in the campus. But certainly not about getting wet with girls in the rain, getting beaten up about girls, playing a cricket match for a girl, starting anti-ragging sessions for a girl, being afraid about asking girl for a kiss....

May be that's just me... but after seeing the movie, I feel that I have been shown a feel-good movie which tries to set-up the context for nostalgic moments of my college life... but gets away from me as the film progresses. At the end of the movie, you realize... wow, was it about college life? i thought my college days were happy days... but now I question myself: were my days really 'happy'?

Don't get me wrong!  Happy Days is still an excellent wholesome telugu family entertainer with the traditional Shekar Kammula signature. What I am saying is that  Shekar Kammula has missed a wonderful opportunity to tell a beautiful story of India's Gen Y college crowd whose life stories are more than love stories! I will continue to listen to Mickey J Meyer's excellent music though, but with my own pictures in my head.

Rating: 3.5/5


` Vamsi