The third feature from director Roshan Sethi, A Nice Indian Boy is a romantic comedy so smoothly assembled and lightly likable that the impressive weave of its storyline can get overlooked. Efficiently shot with intermittent flashes of flair, the film’s strongest quality is the acting of its two leads. Additionally, the supporting cast is handed roles of considerable dimension.
A Westernized Indian film landing squarely in the contemporary mainstream, A Nice Indian Boy’s meet-cute arrives quickly, zeroing in on awkward ER doctor Naveen (Karan Soni) as he overcomes his insecurities to establish a relationship with the outgoing and impulsive Jay, a white freelance photographer and aspiring artist who was raised by Hindi foster parents (Naveen and Jay first meet at temple).
The wedding of Naveen’s sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani) opens the film, the music and corresponding action establishing the up-to-date tone of a forward-thinking but thoroughly accessible rom-com. Sethi’s film isn’t any kind of explicit genre throwback, as he avoids direct stylistic homage. Furthermore, there’s no genre subversion or deconstruction. Based on a play by Madhuri Shekar, A Nice Indian Boy is as much a story of the struggles between tradition-minded parents and their more open-minded children as it is a standard issue rom-com where opposites attract.
This opens up the narrative to touch upon (but not delve too deeply into) the arranged marriage of Naveen and Arundhathi’s parents, Megha (Zarna Garg) and Archit (Harish Patel). It’s also revealed that Arundhathi’s marriage has soured and she’s getting a divorce. Refreshingly, unlike in some recent Hollywood or Hollywood-adjacent gay rom-coms, which can be frustratingly chaste, there is an appealing amount of spice (stopping short of raunch) in the growth of Naveen and Jay’s relationship.
The core couple make it to the engagement stage prior to meeting the parents, whereupon the union falls apart, only to be put back together again, with numerous good-natured jokes about gay weddings. Notably, the parents aren’t intolerant; the ensuing chaos results from an acceleration of change (too much too quickly) intersecting with false assumptions on the part of all parties.
That Bollywood classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge figures prominently in A Nice Indian Boy’s story and reinforces the movie’s focus on family, as Aditya Chopra’s 1995 love saga is also a story of generational conflict. In A Nice Indian Boy, Jay takes Naveen to a screening of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge on their first date. Naveen loved the movie as a child, but keeps this fact a secret from Jay.
This connection to Bollywood (plus a minor character who works as a theater projectionist) injects a love of film into the narrative. Although blatant cinephile references or showy directorial gestures are absent, Sethi’s directorial choices aren’t an exact continuation of the invisible style that elevated so many old-school Hollywood rom-coms. However, his consistently modest execution at least registers as descended from (if inevitably lesser than) the films of an earlier era.
A series of ascending climaxes culminates with a dance number at the wedding, a development that tightens the knots to Bollywood and to the Hollywood happy ending simultaneously. A contemporary spin on convention, A Nice Indian Boy manages to keep its lightness from drifting into the insubstantial. A shift in voiceover from Naveen at the beginning of the film to Arundhathi near the end reinforces Sethi’s investment in these characters and how he has more on his mind than just jerking tears and tickling funny bones.
Photo courtesy of Blue Harbor Entertainment
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