It’s inspiration in reverse: Hollywood inspired by ‘Bollywood’!
From time immemorial, we have taken story ideas from the West, specifically Hollywood. Chori Chori and Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin were covert ‘remakes’, but skilled and successful ones, of It Happened One Night. Aitbaar (1985) was a superb adaptation and Indianization of Dial M for Murder. Chachi 420 (1997) was inspired by Mrs. Doubtfire. And so on…
As for sequences and songs, there were unlimited more examples. And too much space would be taken up to elucidate on even a few. Let us then move on to the reverse: inspiration in Hollywood from “Bollywood” as Hindi cinema is misguidedly called.
First example!
Steven Spielberg’s Star Wars (1977) was the first film possibly where I noted a definite Hindi film influence, seemingly corroborated by Spielberg himself later when he admitted to watching select Indian films. In the climax, there was a chase sequence wherein one of the good ‘guys’ was injured and the villains were after them. In true Hindi film fashion, he told all his friends, “Carry on! Leave me alone!” with the right melodramatic overtone of self-sacrifice seen by then in multiple Hindi movies!
As my memory serves, he was very much rescued and alive in the end. And then we had a last shot: a ‘group / family photo’, the latter being a very familiar trope then for many a Hindi film’s happy ending!
India seeps in…
Since then, of course, India and Indians (both from here and those based in US) have seeped into Hollywood in great quantum. This is a far cry from the time of Peter Seller’s classic comedy, The Party (1968), where Indians were lampooned through the persona of Sellers’ protagonist character, Vrundi (a name that does not exist in India!) Bakshy. Vrundi was shown as a good-hearted but completely clumsy and therefore annoying guest at a high-end party.
Today, we have actors as well as other behind-the-screens personae thriving abroad apart from established filmmakers: too many to mention. A lot of Indian post-production facilities are also employed for economical reasons by Hollywood studios.
The influences have burgeoned manifold too. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had four Hindi film songs playing on a stereo system way back in 2004 (from Universal Music’s Hindi catalog), preceded by the complete situational use of Aaj mausam beimaan hai bada (from Loafer in 1973) in Monsoon Wedding (2001). The 2006 Inside Man featured the 1998 Dil Se… hit, Chal chhaiyaan chhaiyaan prominently, while the 2019 film featured Akshay Kumar as an FBI agent.
Meet the Fockers, the 2004 comedy, saw a significant Indian element with Yoga et al, and there are now series and shows in which Indian people and culture are feature prominently indeed.
And now, I finally come to the 2025 film that inspired me to write this article: You are Cordially Invited, a dramedy that I watched on Amazon Prime Video. This entertainer film might even be remade in Hindi tomorrow, but I could not help watching the influences of our cinema in it. The story is of an exotic wedding venue, chosen by two parties, being accidentally committed to both on the same day, and the humor and drama that happens afterwards.
Forget the minor facts that a Sikh gentleman is shown as one of the wedding guests and a saree-clad Indian woman is also shown playing a part in the wedding ceremony, forget also that Jenni Caldwell, one of the two brides, is played by a half-Indian, half-Swiss actress from Australia (Geraldine Viswanathan).
For one, the narration is replete with a lot of music for any Hollywood film, including replays of old hits (Check similarity to re-created songs in Hindi movies!). The lyrics are hyper-sentimental as in classic Hindi films. We also have the over-emotional husband who also talks to his late wife, looking up at the stars in the sky. He is also the possessive father who oversteps his limit, a feature not always given due importance in Hindi cinema wherein we see a lot of the species. The alligator sequence is a classic example of the illogic that works in the name of manoranjan in a Hindi movie. Then there is the family photograph again in the climax. Last but not least, the end-credits video features all the principal characters dancing away. And what’s more, a Manish Raval is billed as Music Editor / Music Supervisor!
The general tenor of the film also shows a grammar that is more similar to Hind cinema than to its Hollywood model, and You are Cordially Invited to watch the film and reflect on this! And of course, this is by no means the only film to have such a feel.
Hello Hollywood, we have arrived and merged into you just when our Hindi films are now suffused with your creative influences. Here’s hoping we do not, in this interaction, lose our own distinct individual identities. After all, we are the two biggest movie industries in the world and we surely owe that much to our individual and common audiences!
