By Karl Quinn
A Nice Indian Boy
★★★½
M, 96 minutes
A Nice Indian Boy is a rom-com of sorts, and predictable in many respects, but it’s far from a cynical cookie-cutter exercise. It clearly means the world to its director and its writers, each of whom is deeply invested in the material in their own way, and that gives it an air of sincerity that elevates it, even as it sometimes threatens to smother the life out of it.
Naveen (Karan Soni) and Jay (Jonathan Groff) first encounter each other at a Hindu temple.Credit: Roadshow
Naveen Gavaskar (Karan Soni) is a doctor, the son of Indian immigrants, a Hindu, a fan of Bollywood, and gay. It’s a complex and sometimes contradictory masala.
Naveen is obsessed with weddings – the film opens with a lavish bash for his sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani) and her husband – but deeply conflicted, as there is no place in his religious, cultural or family tradition for a gay celebration. He feels excluded from the thing he most desires.
There is also no potential husband until the charming and easygoing Jay (Jonathan Groff, the voice of Olaf and Kristoff in the Frozen films, and King George in Hamilton) enters his world.
Theirs is a classic rom-com meet-cute: Naveen is praying to Ganesh at a temple when he senses Jay behind him. They don’t talk, but when Jay later turns up to take photographic portraits at the hospital where Naveen works, the spark of romance is lit.
Weddings. parties, everything: The movie opens with a traditional ceremony for Naveen’s sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani).Credit: Roadshow
Naveen is such a tightly wound coil, though, that he’s forever on the brink of blowing up this fledgling relationship. He winces when Jay sings (in a complicated backstory, Jay was a foster child eventually adopted by Indian parents, and is a huge fan of Bollywood). He is ashamed of his family, but equally ashamed of Jay when he finally allows them to meet him. He is even afraid to admit he wants the big Bollywood spectacle as part of his own romantic wish fulfillment.
That all makes Naveen difficult to root for, especially in the first half of the movie. It also makes it hard to determine whether his parents are really the reactionary villains he depicts them as. Mum Megha (Zarna Garg) and Dad Archit (Harish Patel) certainly have their idiosyncrasies, but their arranged marriage appears to have thrived in its own prickly way. There’s more than one way to reach a happy ending.
Director Roshan Sethi is a doctor, a gay man, and – as he was preparing to make the film in Canada in late 2023 – about to wed his partner of many years, despite his Hindu mother’s objections.
Madhuri Shekar wrote the play on which the film is based during COVID while feeling intense pressure from her otherwise liberal parents to get married in a traditional Hindu ceremony. Screenwriter Eric Randall adapted the play as he was about to wed his boyfriend.
You can sense all that deep personal investment on the screen. A Nice Indian Boy may not break too many rules, but it does play the rom-com game with an uncommonly high level of compassion and commitment that’s to be applauded.
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