Since the grandmasters of the Gujju community Aatish Kapadia and Jamnadas Majethia were involved , comparisons with Sarabhai Versus Sarabhai and Khichdi were inevitable, but inappropriate. The characters in Happy Family: Conditions Apply are painted in different strokes. At any given point in the plot, there is a crossbreed of activities happening. Not all of it is exciting or interesting. Some of the writing, especially about the missing jewellery in the family, needed more of a shoulder. The jokes are often stretched out beyond endurance. But the actors especially Ratna Shah, Babbar, Atul Kulkarni are in fine form. Atul Kumar as the NRI Dholakia heir who has a surprise for the family,is a hoot. Happy Family is fun in a goofy ground-level connectible kind of way. It may not be a laugh riot. But that’s okay. It delivers what it promises.
Enough has been said about the lurid tone and the cheap abusive language of Rana Naidu. Tragically, the more the offended sections wrote against the series, the more popular it became. The series has been topping Netflix’s charts for weeks now.
I have no clue why actors like Venkatesh, Rana Daggubati and Surveen Chawla would want to be any part of this cheesy trashy low-blow of an endeavour where the language is so crude it would make a streetwalker blush. Rana Naidu transposes the mythic hedonism,crime and debauchery of Hollywood to Bollywood. The transition is awkward and frequently ill-conceived. The depiction of showbiz decadence here is far less shocking , much more (unintentionally) comic, than in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Seriously,if this is what Indian OTT audiences enjoy then we have a lot to worry about.
After watching 10 episodes of Rocket Boys less than a year ago, ten more episode in March seem like 10, or maybe 8, too many. The saga of Vikram Sarabhai and Homi Bhabha seems never-ending. And history never seemed such a slog. There are many charming moments dotting the stretched-out landscape. Everyone has an agenda in Rocket Boys 2, although one is never sure what it is. Besides an emotional constipation wherein the characters bottle up their real feelings for the sake of what they feel to be a larger good, Rocket Boys 2 suffers from discernible budgetary constraints. Crowd scenes , the missile launches and any scene that requires more than three characters on the screen looks tacky.
Nonetheless Rocket Boys at least revisits an important chunk of Indian history with pride and dignity. For that it must be commended.
