Guddu Rangeela Review: The colourless Arshad Warsi film fails to strike a chord

Khap Panchayats and honour killings are scary. And so is Ronit Roy.

In Guddu Rangeela, Roy plays the Khap leader, Billu Pehalwan who makes parents shoot their adult children for daring to love someone outside their caste. If the families err, he kills young lovers himself with great relish. But when he is after one Rangeela (Arshad Warsi) who looks as old as Billu himself, it cuts no ice with the backdrop if you consider the inspiration – a real incident of honor killing involving the case of Manoj and Babli.

The film is based around quite a far-fetched idea. This well over 40 bridegroom, Rangeela, is running away with his young bride called Babli (Shriswara). So you see the two running across a bridge, hand in hand, while Billu stands with a rifle, taking aim. Babli gets shot. She stumbles and falls into the river below.

At this point, one should be weeping for the helpless, newly married couple. But it hardly makes any difference. A newspaper headline would be far more dramatic and effective. If Arnab Goswami were to highlight the incident on his show, you might even feel some outrage. But an entire two hour movie, written and directed by Subhash Kapoor, fails to move even for a minute.

NH10 did a far better job with a more realistic depiction of a young couple getting beaten up in the Haryana hinterland. Kapoor’s previous film, Jolly LLB, won a national award for the best feature film in Hindi and like Guddu Rangeela, had also been inspired by a real hit and run case of Sanjeev Nanda.

Babli’s death is simply a plot point used to make this film a revenge drama between Rangeela and Billu. Later, there is a twist which is completely over the top even by ‘filmy’ standards. There seems to be a parallel revenge tale of another girl called Baby (Aditi Rao Hydari). Baby first appears on screen as a dumb and deaf girl, kidnapped by Rangeela and his buddy Guddu (Amit Sadh of Kai Po Che fame). It's pretty evident that she is far from dumb. Baby is actually out to get her own personal revenge from Billu.

In between all the cat and mouse chase games in Shimla, Baby doesn’t mind sharing space with Guddu who is anything but a gentleman. His idea of romancing her is to ask her, ”degi?” Of course, she tells him to lay off. But once she warms up to him, he asks her again, “legi”? She actually smiles. Sadh is quite unsuitable for this role. Neither his looks or performance make him seem like a small time goon that he is. He cracks not so funny jokes and plays a khabri (informer) of robberies, while his partner in crime –Rangeela, dresses in garish costumes and sings at orchestras, with "maata ka email aaya hai”.

It takes a good half hour to establish the duo is caught between the corrupt cops and conniving paymasters. And quite honestly, the setup length adds more to boredom than to any authenticity.

The film then moves to familiar territory of the hero beating up the villain. The only difference is you don’t root for anyone, and the only good thing about the film is some decent acting by Warsi and Roy. Hydari and Sadh as a couple are quite redundant. Warsi, known for his comic flair, unfortunately does not have a single funny moment.

Meanwhile, the lack of any bro-mance chemistry between him and Sadh, makes the film even more dull. It's nothing like his previous pairing with Sanjay Dutt in Munnabhai MBBS or Naseeruddin Shah in Ishqiya.

It is finally left to Ronit Roy to maintain the tension and he does the villainous barking and glaring quite brilliantly. However, the actors’ brave efforts are not reason enough to watch the lackluster and colourless Guddu Rangeela. Arnab’s show is a better bet.

Labour of Love review: This powerful film transcends spoken languages and engages you

Technically, Labour of Love is a Bengali film. But actually, this debut film by Aditya Vikram Sengupta, transcends all spoken languages and makes a voyeuristic camera a powerful spokesperson.

Initially, the camera tests your patience. A very slow downward pan on a wall with credits rolling in, hints at the somber and calm mood of a long and silent narrative. It doesn’t care about the discomfort of silence.

The camera pauses on the most mundane sights: a melted soap cake, oil simmering in a pan, wet footprints until they dry. At one point, the frame is still on an entire sunset. But it is this very relentlessness of the camera and the director, which ultimately sucks you into a day of a life of a middle class couple.

What seems like just any day, unfolds into a story that shakes you with its deceptive slumberous approach. Deservedly, Labour of Love has won several festival awards, including one in Venice and New York.

A news announcement on a blank screen has informed us of a recession backdrop in Kolkata. Mill workers are on a protest march and their slogans heard off screen, are the only words spoken in the 84-minute film.

There are two pivotal characters in the film, and we are shown bits of their life.

The camera follows the back of a woman in a sari, as she walks fast through narrow spaces between building walls. The first sound heard after what feels like an eternity, is the sound of a tram. The woman reaches a busy road and takes the tram. The camera settles in on her face, as she looks out of the window. The play of sunlight catches her calm demeanor.

We do not know what she is thinking or feeling. She eats something, gets off the tram, crosses the road and takes a bus. Soon she is rushing through the corridors of a building where a bell rings, adding to the urgency of a workday at a leather handbag factory.

Simultaneously, in cross cuts, we see a man drink his tea in his home. He goes about the daily routine of taking a bath with limited water in a bucket and a broken, melted soap. After finishing certain other household activities of going out, buying some fish, encashing a small cheque at a bank, the man returns home and tries to sleep. It is at this point that a certain action displays the director’s eye for detail in the mundane.

The man realizes the fan is too fast and gets up to change the speed. Later when the woman is seen on the bed, also alone, she gets up to increase the fan’s speed.

This humdrum of a mundane life in a middle class household couldn’t be captured better. The transition of the day, shown by the smoothest shot of the woman coming up a staircase, displays great skill in direction.

Here's a couple caught in the drudgery of making a living at a time when the uncertainty of a job is driving people to suicides. Their deliberate calm exteriors, refusing to reveal the inner world, is evocative of millions of people who brave very challenge with quiet acceptance.

So you watch the man wake up at night and start his own. working day at a printing press; and the woman return and cook that meal which he eats when he is back.

Do they ever meet? Watch Labour of Love for its smooth unfolding into a beautiful and surreal ending, which makes the entire story unforgettable in a hard hitting reality of a couple’s life affected by a city’s economic crisis and social milieu.

Hamari Adhuri Kahani review: This film reduces Vidya Balan to a whimpering mess

O married lady, thy place is at thy lover’s feet,
Worshipping gratitude is thy virtue.
Who else doth uplift you bechari
But the rich boss swooning over your lilies?

Such is the undying faith expressed in the good Indian wife by Mahesh Bhatt, writer and producer of Hamari Adhuri Kahani(HAK) and self-professed woman’s lib advocate turned regressive preacher. In HAK, he has for company the Aashiqui 2 and Ek Villain director, Mohit Suri, and their regular dialogue writer, Shagufta Rafique. The trio’s conviction in a bygone century’s sacrificial feminine lambs and grateful tearjerkers results in in a ridiculous love story that attempts to be a tragedy, but ends up being an unintentional comedy.

How else can you explain or react to Vidya Balan falling at Emraan Hashmi’s feet, shedding tears of helpless gratitude?

The two actors were explosive as enemies in The Dirty Picture. A single night of not-so-dirty conversation between the two in that film was enough to establish them as a couple with promising chemistry. Hashmi proved he can act better than he can kiss. Balan was nicknamed “Vidya Khan” after her delightfully uninhibited “Ooh La La” act, which she followed up with an equally impressive performance in Kahaani.

It was inevitable that Balan and Hashmi would be paired again and both times, they’ve played husband and wife. Both times, it’s been disappointing. Ghanchakkar did not do them justice. In HAK, the perfect duo of The Dirty Picturecouldn’t be more imperfect to tell Bhatt’s parents’ real love story.

When the delightfully bold and supremely clever, pregnant wife from Kahani changes into Vasudha, a whimpering, mangalsutra-clutching wife, it’s nothing short of a casting blasphemy. It’s also a surefire way to kill every acting talent cell in the wonderful Balan, who is reduced to a whimpering mess. As Vasudha keeps palming her mangalsutra — as though doing so makes her a conscientious, dutiful wife with A-plus character certificate — you can’t help but remember Farah Khan’s famous “ek chutki sindoor…” spoof in Om Shanti Om. It was meant to be about the movies in the seventies, but could very much apply to HAK.

Vasudha marries Hari (Rajkummar Rao), who forces her to tattoo his name on her arm. Satisfied with that stamp, he disappears for five years, leaving Vasudha to bring up their son alone. She works as a florist at a five-star hotel owned by business tycoon, Aarav (Hashmi).

The smitten Aarav suddenly turns shy and expresses himself by asking her to send him selfies. The two romance amidst exotic flowers in greenhouses and exotic landscapes that fail to match Yash Chopra’s gorgeous tulip fields in Silsila. Along with the singing twosome, you too might wondering , “yeh kahan aa gaye hum….?” Both the selfies and the flowers repeatedly pop up until the mindblowing significance of the two is written into the oh-so-(not)-clever climax.

How can this flowery love story be without conflict? Of course, the missing husband turns up as a bearded terrorist hiding under a bed in his own house. Here’s a fine example of what a bad script and direction can do to perfectly good actors. Rao is at his worst playing this lunatic, jealous husband, looking like a homeless lunatic, mumbling silly lines and shaking his white-haired head like Shah Rukh Khan in Veer Zara.

HAK moves from Mumbai to Dubai and ends up in the deserted and dangerous roads of terrorist-ridden Bastar in Chattisgarh, which apparently is a dead ringer for South Africa. This is a journey of pain: the pain of watching the talented Balan struggling to justify a badly-written role; the pain of seeing the director of Arth stuck in a time warp and refusing to grow out of a poor-me syndrome; the pain of watching Bhatt kill the memorable Kahaani girl of Ooh La La land with the that mighty Indian weapon: the mangalsutra.

The Duff review: Seen-before teenage story of love that's still fun and charming

Labels stick. Labels suck. Labels crush. Jock, Geek, Rocker, Mean Girl. These are all passé. Here’s another: Designated Ugly, Fat Friend (DUFF). This, of course, is bestowed with typical teenage casual cruelty in the American high school. So, let’s play along with the mothers and grandmothers of teen clichés in The Duff, based on a novel by Kody Keplinger. It’s a seen-before-tale of teenage love — warts, pimples and all — but it turns out to be quite a fun sport.

Hot chicks in high school are either over-sweet (read: dumb) or shameless leggy, blonde bitches. The ugly and fat ones are smart and funny, but invisible. They were given polite terms like plain Janes in pre social networking era. Now, they are called ugly and fat outright, and are the butt of YouTube video pranks.

The same applies to the boys. The dumb studs with six packs fail their Chemistry papers, but are great at flirting in the labs. The cute, curly haired charmers play the guitar rock stars who break hearts with the flick of a guitar string.

A fairy godmother cannot help if you happen to be the best looking girls’ best friend in this unforgiving world of cyber bullies. You simply earn the label ‘DUFF”- the designated ugly fat friend.

So, whose cause will you champion? These are the teams:
The Duff: Bianca (Mae Whitman).
Her Hot Best Friends: Jess (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca Santos).
The Blonde Bitch: Madison (Bella Thorne).
The Dumb Stud: Wesley (Robbie Amell).
The Cute Rock Star: Toby Tucker (Nick Eversman).

The last name is quite aptly reminiscent of another teenage flick, John Tucker Must Die. Our DUFF, Bianca, is a horror film geek and has a massive crush on Tucker. She treats her next-door stud and Tom Cruise lookalike neighbour, Wesley, with the contempt of a lab student towards a cockroach. He points out (in the most friendly manner possible) that she is no less than invisible to those leching at her best friends, Jess and Casey. Bianca reacts by promptly “unfriending” the two on Facebook and every other social networking site: the ultimate insult in today’s world. The two pretties remain kind and forgiving. No drama there.

Then Bianca strikes a deal with Wesley. He can teach her a thing or two about shopping for the right pushup bra while she can share her Chemistry notes. The idea is to get her to gather courage to approach the cute guitarist, Tucker.

Meanwhile, the blonde bitch, Madison, has set her long lashed eyes on Wesley. His closeness to Bianca sets her plotting and scheming and makes her the queen witch of cyber bullydom. The conflict stage is set.

It’s a classic good friend and mean guy triangle. You get the drill. Yet, The Duff charms and disarms you with quick, snappy lines and adorable performances from one and all. A couple of friendly teachers (Korean and Black, for the diversity campaign) and a single mom (Allison Janney) on the dating prowl add a dash of contemporary humour.

You wish that the characters of Madison, Jess and Casey were fleshed out more than their cardboard looks. Their insecurities beneath their skin-deep beauty and the complications that follow in friendships had the makings of a great subplot left undefined. A deeper exploration of cyber bullying might have lent some real meaning to current high school scenarios.

Whitman sparkles and shines with her comic delivery. Her camaraderie with the very likeable Amell is enough to brighten a predictable script. The spirited students win The Duff an A, despite its lazy and easy treatment. So what if there is no one really fat or ugly here and we just have one more label?

Love in world cinema: How romance works in Kiarostami, Rohmer and Linklater’s films

“I like it.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I don’t see why I have to try and convince you.”

“I wonder how you can convince yourself.”

“You’re a real art expert, aren’t you?”

“I don’t see it as work of art. I like its subject.”

“Its subject?”

“I like the way she rests her head on his shoulder.”

“I can’t believe you’re so…sentimental.”

“I can’t believe you’re so…irresponsible.”

This is an argument that takes place between an art critic (William Shimell) and an unnamed French woman (Juliette Binoche) in the film Copie Conforme (Certified Copy), by celebrated Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami. In it, a mysterious French woman and the art critic talk about art and copies, while roaming around Tuscany.Gradually, the conversations become personal and intimate. Soon they’re sparring with each other like a married couple. One brilliantly written scene reflects how arguments can get bizarre to show years of suppressed emotions. Binoche has just been to the washroom, dabbed bright red lipstick on and put on long, pretty earrings. She sits at the table, looking at Shimell expectantly. He barely notices and grumbles about his drink.

She: “Look at your wife. She has made herself pretty for you. Open your eyes.”

He: “This is just not the moment. It is five o’clock. I’m hungry. I need a drink.”

[Crestfallen, she pulls off her earrings.]She: “When is the moment? It wasn’t last night either. When is the right moment?”

He: “Look darling, I was tired. Why couldn’t you just think my poor husband is exhausted, he has falling asleep.”

She: “Just say you don’t love me anymore.”

...

He: “You’d fallen asleep at the wheel going down the motorway. So I’ve a simple question for you."

She: “Simple answer.”

He: “Why did you fall asleep?”

She: “I was tired.”

He: “Did you fall asleep because you stopped loving our son?”

She: ”I dozed off, I didn’t sleep.”

He: “I dozed off too.”

She: “No, you were asleep.”

By the end of the movie, you don’t know if they met in the morning or have been married 15 years. Are they strangers play-acting – or copying – a marriage or are they a couple pretending to be strangers and moving into role-play?

Certified Copy is never really over. Long leisurely takes, still frames, ambiguous endings and talky scenes keep you engaged and engrossed. The tantalizing romance between this couple that you can’t pin down lingers in memory. The lines with which they provoke and woo each other are a seduction aimed at the audience. And it works.

Love is a shape-shifting thing. It’s usually a soaring ballad or a dance number in Bollywood. In Hollywood, it’s sealed with a kiss and some gasp-ridden lovemaking scene that offers flashes of naked skin. And then there’s the love we see in world cinema – a quietly intense thing that is filigreed with words and conceits.

There are only a few filmmakers who can indulge in this sort of love story without becoming annoyingly self-indulgent. French director Eric Rohmer is one of them. His films often follow a pattern. The central plot tends to be about a man who is attracted to one woman, distracted by a second and ultimately chooses to return to the first. It’s almost Biblical in its simplicity – the man chooses virtue over vice.

In Rohmer’s Ma Nuit Chez Maud (My night with Maud), a staunchly Catholic man spends a night with Maud, a single mom and divorcee. She challenges his religious values and he has to defend them while confronting the temptation she embodies. Each conversation in Ma Nuit Chez Maud is a little love story in itself. Intimacy is explored with ruthless honesty and a chaste yet cruel passion.

One of the most memorable scenes in the film is a 20-minute conversation between Maud and the Catholic, shot using still frames. Maud lies under an exotic white fur blanket while the man strolls around the room, pontificating and arguing. Maud listens and also provokes him. “You are both a shamefaced Christian and a shamefaced Don Juan,” she tells him.

He tells Maud, “Women have taught me a lot, morally speaking. It would be idiotic to generalize, but each girl I met posed a new moral challenge.” As he bares his soul to Maud, he seems almost unaware of the next moral challenge lying in bed.In Oscar-nominated Richard Linklater’s beloved trilogy of love stories, the challenges are not moral as much as everyday banality. Based on languid conversations, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight goes deep into the viscera of a relationship: the courtship, the breakups, marriage and estrangement. In short: growing up.

The trilogy is a thesis on love, with each film following the lead couple over the span of a single day. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet, fall in love and age over the course of the three films. In Before Sunrise, they walk around in Vienna. In Before Sunset, they explore Paris and in Before Midnight, they’re a married couple on a holiday in Greece.

Their conversations range from the esoteric to the bizarre, like any couple’s. Or perhaps these are the conversations, with their artful mischief and poignant candour, that we wish we could have had.

CELINE: “All right? There could be a revolution any second...”

JESSE: “Don't.”

CELINE: “People eat a lot of feta and olive oil, they act all happy but they actually talk about how ‘angry’ they are... and it confuses me and I don't know what's going to happen in the next few weeks.”

JESSE: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me tell you what's going to happen alright. The same thing that always happens: Nothing.”

CELINE: “Alright. You know what? I have had absolutely zero time for myself, I have ten thousand emails I have to answer that I didn't answer... “

JESSE: “And you think I don't?”

CELINE:”I'm happy you have time to contemplate the universe and have existential problems because I don't - I barely have time to think. I work, I baby- sit, I work, I baby-sit. “

…

CELINE: ”I have realized I’ve just stopped loving you. This is it.”

Except of course, it isn’t. The love stories continue, as we replay scenes and remember moments in our memory, long after the films fade to black.

DIL DHADAKNE DO: ZOYA AKHTAR'S TITANIC

(This has first published on Firstpost.http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/dil-dhadakne-do-review-zoya-akhtar-one-of-bollywoods-finest-but-the-movie-is-shallow-2281500.html)

When a camera does an almost a single-take waltz, around a brilliantly choreographed song with an infectious rhythm, and Ranveer Singh, Farhan Akhtar and Anil Kapoor grooving with hardcore filmi desi gusto, it’s both a treat and a feat. In Dil Dhadakne Do, this is achieved by one of Bollywood’s best directors, Zoya Akhtar.

There are few directors who add meaning to feelgood cinema. Akhtar and Raj Kumar Hirani are the top contenders in that arena. Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara remains the finest in several aspects of filmmaking. There’s unusual casting; a screenplay as smooth as a BMW ride; grand visual imagery and above all, Farhan Akhtar’s witty one-liners, which leave you guffawing along with pranksters who add ‘bwoys’ to the dictionary.

Dil Dhadakne Do is the story of a family celebrating the parents’ 25th wedding anniversary on a luxury cruise around Europe, and it is an ambitious and well-intended attempt to sail around unspoken territories. It’s a sincere attempt to go deep, which in the entire first half ends up dragging under its serious tone and humourless weight. The film just about stays afloat with the help of three winsome actors: Farhan Akhtar, Anushka Sharma and Shefali Shah.

Ranveer Singh’s energy and chemistry with Sharma are welcome sparks and a lifeboat for the boredom that threatens to sink this lavishly-mounted film. His and Sharma’s self-choreographed dance, with its shades of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence’s wild moves in Silver Lining Playbook, is a joyous, invigorating break from the monotony of a squabbling family.The Mehras are a wealthy Punjabi family of five: Kamal (Anil Kapoor), Neelam (Shefali Shah), Ayesha (Priyanka), Kabir (Ranveer Singh) and Pluto. Pluto is not just a pet. He has a voice (Aamir Khan), he thinks and he gives us the lengthy lowdowns on how this family. The Mehras hide their true feelings and shy away from real communication. As Sharma’s Farah puts it, “Tum log baat nahin karte?” So it is left to Pluto to do all the talking and philosophising. Guess Khan is a pro after preaching his way through PK.

The one who makes brave attempts to talk is Kabir. But first he must fly aircrafts when depressed. And then lie cheerfully to make sure his plane isn’t sold by his dad. His sister, Ayesha, has been married off to the stuck-up Manav (Rahul Bose), so that she does not elope with a manager’s son. Boy and girl discrimination rules both households and Ayesha is the silent victim whose pouty lips are sealed despite her education and business acumen.

Meanwhile, Kamal is on the brink of a bankruptcy and secretly takes anti-anxiety pills. Neelam constantly swallows his insults by stuffing her face with cakes. (Watch out for each of their solo scenes in the privacy of the bathroom. Shah can evoke tears without shedding one herself.)

Kamal and Neelam, stereotyped to a fault, dominate the story with their controlling ways. On board with them are equally stereotype uncles and aunts who also rule over their own children. Except for a nice moment with the aunties sitting in a row at a kitchen table and one of the quipping, “But who will give us a job?”, they all serve as prettily dressed props with identical handbags, lining the deck.

With the middle-aged parents crowding the ensemble plot, Kabir and Ayesha are rendered puppets who entertain when they dance and swing; and engage when they eventually shout and scream. You are left wanting to see more of Akhtar and Sharma, the only outsiders to the rich and closed community. Unfortunately, they remain on the periphery. So does the humour surrounding the film’s issues, which don’t come across as real when flushed with the gloss in costumes, make-up and the locations.

Kapoor is in his full element as the cold and ruthless businessman, husband and dad. Shah takes the cake, literally, with her chin-up act. Singh many not be King but is quite charming as the sulking prince. Chopra tries so hard to be perfectly made up that her looks constantly distract you from her performance. She saves herself with the right submissive expressions of a long-suffering wife in bed. Bose as her husband is decent in his indecency. Zarina Wahab as his controlling mom has some great lines and she delivers them surprisingly well. Sharma sizzles and Akhtar shines in their cameos.

When Dil Dhadakne Do’s chaotic climax comes, the shift in characters and dynamics don’t matter. Not even the lifeboat used in the end can rescue Zoya Akhtar’s brave Titanic cruising on shallow waters. Perhaps Ranveer Singh put it best when he joked in an interview that was the making of Excel Travel and Tours. It’s exotic, but not rejuvenating.

WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAY: FAMILY REDEFINED

(This has first appeared in Firstpost)

Take the best elements of the delightful 2006 film, Little Miss Sunshine – children, grandfather, warring parents – remove its dark depth and churn it into a larger, crowd-pleasing, feel-good film with a clichéd dash of humour, and you get What We Did On Our Holiday.

This passable summer-holiday watch has Gone Girl’s Oscar-nominated star Rosamund Pike as the everyday wife and mom. Her presence and performance are just as average. The same is true of David Tennant, who plays Pike’s husband.

As it happens with any family in life, the children take centrestage in What We Did… . They are not cute little darlings, but brats who are capable of driving their parents crazy. In the backseat, they’re an annoyance. Put them in the front seat and no parent will survive their antics. Their intrepid and adorable grandfather (Billy Connolly), with his dangerous sense of humour, does exactly that on his supposedly last birthday.

What follows is a Hollywood ride that gives two BBC writers – the writer-director duo of Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin – a chance to poke fun at the British. The children’s behaviour is explained to strangers with one line: ”They are from London.”

A London based couple, Aby (Pike) and Doug (David Tennant), drive down to the scenic Scotland Highlands with their three brats. They’ve gone to visit their cancer struck father, Gordie (Connolly) on his 75th birthday. The constantly arguing couple is about to split and decide to keep it a secret for the sake of the ailing dad.

However, Aby and Doug’s brats are the sort who would be more than happy to spill more beans than you can count. And there are many. Like, the parents live in separate houses now. Oh, and pop is having an affair.

The writing goes out of its way to make it clear that this is a dysfunctional family. And if this wasn’t evident to the presumably dimwitted audiences in the course of the film, then Aby gives a last key speech on how its all about loving your family, functional or otherwise. You’d be forgiven for thinking it belongs in the climax of a Karan Johar film. It’s another matter that this speech is one of What We Did…’s big failures since it’s used to breezily wrap up a hasty and lazy third act.

Fortunately, What We Did… has the brats. Mickey (Bobby Smalldridge), 6, worships the Vikings. Ten-year-old Lottie (Emilia Jones) has mastered the art of serious, mature expressions while she jots down every family secret in her notebook. Aby and Doug’s youngest, Jess (Harriet Turnbull), is the cutest and the scene-stealer. She has rocks for pets and shamelessly steals her uncle’s keys.

The uncle is Doug’s elder brother, Gavin (Ben Miller) who is as much a kid as Jess. Keep an eye out for the clapping scene (after a boring violin performance by Gavin’s son) with Gavin and Jess, which is quite chuckle worthy. Gavin’s wife, Margaret (a delightful Amelia Bullmore) is a depressed nutcase in private but utterly composed in drawing rooms. Her character is a stroke of fine writing, in its subtle and funny exploration of the pressure that intensifies from keeping up family appearances.

Between the three little monsters and the two family comedians, there is much fun to be had at grandpa’s birthday.

One thing is guaranteed after watching What We Did On Our Holiday: you may not be keen on brats, but you will be sold on the idea of a holiday in Scotland.