Happy New Year is a light-and-sound show in the guise of a heist-meets-dance movie. This is where I stop – I am totally not going to take the bait and write a paean to the badness of the movie.
Here’s a plot summary instead: Charlie (Shah Rukh Khan), a foreign university grad, makes money as a street fighter because his father (a safe-maker) was convicted of stealing diamonds from a safe. Charlie and his father’s colleagues Jag (Sonu Sood) and Tammy (Boman Irani) know that his father was set up by his boss, Charan Grover (Jackie Shroff). They see an opportunity to exact vengeance – by stealing diamonds from the same safe, which has since been moved to Dubai. Except the opportunity is in the form of an international dance championship. The crew – with the help of Jag’s hacker nephew Rohan (Vivaan Shah), Nandu (Abhishek Bachchan) who is Charan Grover’s son’s doppelganger, and Nandu’s friend Mohini (Deepika Padukone), an item girl and aspiring dance instructor – attempt the heist.
Now, let’s jump to the women characters. There is one named female character. And a half, if you count Sarah Jane Dias’ Laila, who is supposed to be the volunteer in charge of Team India.
Mohini makes an entrance as an item girl only to become a dance teacher. And is a regular punching bag for Charlie (Shah Rukh Khan). At every plot point, Charlie insults her class, her profession, her style, her looks, everything. But Charlie can get away with anything because he speaks fluent English. He is her… Half-Boyfriend? She can’t stop being in love with him. Also, her character’s job becomes the moral compass in this band of thieves during the climax, because her innocence is pure and her ideals are mum-made.
Mohini’s character is as pointless to the plot as Farah Khan’s directorial chops are to the movie. The movie was all about Charlie and his dad, their male friends, their male enemies, their lies and their truths. It is strange how only Tammy had a woman in his life — his mummy. Wait – Nandu also did, but his mummy had a tumour and was going to die soon; we never see her anyway. We’re not exactly sure if Jag’s mummy is alive or not, but anyone cussing his mother is a trigger for him to lose it. Rohan is supposed to be Jag’s sister’s son, but we’re not really sure where she is either.
Obviously, Mohini has other dancing girls as her friends, but we never really see a moment of them hanging out, except when they’re all literally hanging from the ceiling to entertain their patrons.
Here is a list of things women did in Happy New Year:
- Lola Kutty in a cameo announced that the Indian team was not welcome by the Indians in Dubai
- A woman judge announced how despite their lack of dance skills the Indian team qualified for the finals because of their sporting spirit
- Another woman judge (Geeta Kapoor in a cameo) was so taken by Jag that she flirted with him
- Tammy’s mum (Daisy Irani) cheered for him from in front of the TV set, even collected all the aunties from the neighbourhood and celebrated his victory.
- Mohini’s dancer colleagues gathered in front of a giant TV screen at the club and watched the dance performance live and cheered.
- Laila (Sarah Jane Dias) stopped the team from leaving right before the big announcement that didn’t disqualify them. She was also subjected to Charlie’s flirtations.
- A host of other women were props to male characters and other male props during the introduction scenes.
Happy New Year is probably the year’s worst film when it comes to representation of women.