Then there are films that tackle realistic subjects and make you laugh out so hard that by the time you exit the cinema, you are both in a good mood and also a little wiser than before. Badhaai Ho is one such attempt that presents a serious issue in a non-serious manner and keeps the audience involved despite them knowing the end and hoping a happily ever after union. After last year’s Bareilly Ki Barfi, Ayushmann Khurrana delivers another low-budget hit that hits the right chord and depends more on his simplicity than his over-the-top acting.

The story revolves around Nakul (Ayushmann Khurrana) who finds himself sandwiched between parents in their 50s who are expecting their third child (Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao) and a girlfriend whose mother doesn’t want to be part of the ‘circus’. Faced with a dilemma both at home and in his office where his love interest Renee (Sanya Malhotra) also works, he decides to rebel against his family until he realises his mistake. How he reconciles with his family and whether Renee accepts him back is what the film is all about. Add a younger brother who doesn’t want to do anything with the arrival of the new addition and a grandmother (Surekha Sikri) who loves to make fun of her son and daughter-in-law, only till she is the only one doing so and you get a blockbuster that relies on intelligent script and masterful expressions from experienced as well as inexperienced actors.

Badhaai Ho is that kind of film where you pay to watch expressions as well as words; even if the sound was mute, you would have known what was happening on screen and the credit goes to the director, Amit Ravindernath Sharma; when Ayushmann’s character learns about the new addition to the family, when Sanya Malhotra questions about it, when the younger brother fights with his colleague about it, there are moments like these that make you watch the film on the big screen. Every actor is perfectly cast in the film and does justice to the screenplay by Akshat Ghildial who wouldn’t have been able to ace it without their help. Although the story resembles Neeli Dhoop, Bushra Ansari’s first play as a writer two decades back where Sajid Hasan and the writer played aged parents expecting a new child, Badhaai Ho is made from the point of view of the elder son who is most affected. •