Unlike Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh Mangal Savdhan, two of the brighter comedies this year, Qarib doesn’t pack its final moments with incident. Instead, after taking the trouble of going to the mountains and finding someone for Jaya to meet, it just ends, pretty much the way you’d expect it to, as if the writers had run out of plot. As the credits rolled I realised this is probably the last we’ll see of Jaya and Yogi. Pity. It’s not just flawless films that have fascinating characters.

Thor: Ragnarok is full of individuals stranded in foreign lands —Thor, Loki and Banner on Sakaar, Hela in a prison somewhere, and, eventually, an entire population without a home. You don’t expect a nod to the global refugee crisis in a film this entertaining, but there it is.

Amit Masurkar’s film—arguably the best Hindi feature of 2017—shines a light on cracks in the system…can say with confidence that Newton thrilled me like no other Hindi film this year.

Through Daddy’s 130 minutes, Gawli remains elusive, his story obscured by multiple timelines and narrators, and his own reticence. Daddy reminded me of Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo, another film about a sphinx-like public figure situated at the intersection of politics and crime.

With so much going for it, it’s disappointing when Shubh Mangal Saavdhan doesn’t come close to sticking the landing. The film’s final 20 minutes includes an elaborate, less-than-sensible gag, a spot of screenwriting panic, an on-the-nose sermon, and a deus ex machina when none was required. But this doesn’t erase what’s come before: a funny, hopeful film, with enough dry wit and generosity of spirit to allow it to circumvent the farcical pitfalls of its subject matter.

Baadshaho may not be a smart film, but it’s a reasonably savvy daft one, inventive enough to revisit a key event from multiple perspectives and silly enough to have Mishra pick a safe in horse blinkers. You don’t go in expecting much of a film that promises Sunny Leone bathing in a barrel. You don’t receive much either, but you’re grateful for the scraps.

Without giving away much more, I’ll say that ambitious plot machinations late in the film mean that neither Pritam’s nor Bitti’s behavior makes much sense—until it finally does and it’s too late. Perhaps some viewers will appreciate this trickery. To me it felt like a sacrificing of character at the altar of cleverness.

Imtiaz seems to have settled into a comfort zone of his own. The cult of Ali the Incurable Romantic will only grow with films like these. But Ali the Director might need to branch out soon.

If the current political climate is to give rise to more films about the Emergency – and we could do with several, just as we could films about other tumultuous periods in our history – one would hope they’re better art.

Anurag Basu’s blithe entertainer is a blend of ‘Barfi!’, ‘Tintin’, ‘Rushmore’ and Spielbergian adventure films…