The Sudden Happy Ending: The Dénouement of the Plot in Bollywood Films

The happy ending is a characteristic ingredient of Bollywood melodramas. The stories spin out along extremely intricate lines, through extraordinary patterns of coincidence, mistaken identity and unlikely twists and turns, endlessly, apparently, when, just at the last minute, suddenly the plot unravels. At the end of these films it is always necessary to re-create the social balance that has been put in danger and that means to obtain the approval of an authority, usually that of the father, or even the endorsement of the god. The aim of this paper is to delineate and analyse the typical devices that enable such an abrupt dénouement of the plot, observing how they relate to the essential characteristics of Bollywood films.