Hal Kitchen
It’s interesting the way audiences respond to certain tropes. Some clichés are seen as desirable precisely because they are clichéd. Perhaps no genre better demonstrates this concept than the romantic comedy, which is substantially defined by its employment of certain narrative tropes, the comfortable familiarity of which is the point. For many, the feeling that the couple may not actually be destined to be together is an unwelcome dose of reality in an experience that was supposed to help them escape from such disappointments. The issue is compounded when it comes to minority experiences. Straight white people have seen their relationships wrapped in cotton wool by Hollywood for decades, with their happily-ever-afters and fairy tale romances. It would still be an exaggeration to say that a queer Indian-American movie’s reappropriation of the wholesome, comforting tropes of a traditional rom-com is “radical” exactly, but, that sense of justice is there in the case of A Nice Indian Boy.
Playing at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival, A Nice Indian Boy is doubly the story of queer representation as it is playing with the narrative tropes of a Western rom-com and the visual tropes of a Bollywood romance. It could’ve explored this avenue further, but mostly remains quite concretely realist and western-accented. Even the second generation immigrant rom-com has tropes of its own. They’re all present and correct in A Nice Indian Boy: the overachieving older sibling (Sunita Mani), the intrusive, awkward parents pressuring the kids to find good partners of their own ethnicity, the taciturn fumbling dad (Harish Patel) and the embarrassing mom (Zarna Garg), and so on.
You’re familiar with the “gay best friend.” Here we have the “gayer best friend” (Peter S. Kim). Protagonists of queer rom-coms are still generally quite reserved about their sexualities, so they’re more relatable to the average gay viewer and less intimidating to straight audiences. Therefore, we’re free to replicate the “gay best friend” trope with a proportionately gayer best friend to crack jokes and give advice.
The nice Indian boy of the title is actually Jay Kurundkar (Jonathan Groff of Knock at the Cabin) a white man who was adopted from the foster care system by loving Indian parents, of whom he has recently been orphaned. Charged with bringing home this nice Indian boy is our actual protagonist, Naveen (Karan Soni of the Deadpool series) a successful doctor who’s still struggling to reconcile his love life with his family. He’s out to his parents but only nominally and has never brought a boyfriend home to tea. As he and Jay meet, hit it off, and soon get serious, that becomes a bridge he’s going to have to cross. Worse yet, his new beau is white (though granted, he’s about as Indian as you can be while still being white and an American)!
So, you can imagine the kind of material we’re looking at here, the kind of characters you’ll be seeing, and the kind of jokes they’ll be making, and your instinticts will probably be about right. If you’ve seen a film like this before, you won’t be taken by surprise. But then you might not have seen a film like this before, and even if you have, what might surprise you is how funny A Nice Indian Boy is. I rarely laugh that often at movies, and I laughed aloud quite a bit at this. It’s certainly an extremely wholesome and endearing experience. It doesn’t have quite the emotional punch of say, Bros, nor does it spend a quarter of its runtime praising itself for its own existence, which I’d consider a trade-off worth making.
The biggest fault with A Nice Indian Boy is the pacing. It moves very quickly and though that’s usually a good thing, it can feel like we’re watching Naveen and Jay’s relationship go downhill on rollerskates. The sense that the relationship is moving too fast is a common issue with rom-coms. Many acknowledge it and use it as a source of narrative conflict, but here it does feel like they–and the movie–could stand to pause for breath. I was routinely taken aback with a sense of “Oh, they’re here already”, an issue compounded by the fact that the film is broken up into six short chapters. What feels like the climax actually comes closer to the midpoint with the main conflict then shifting from reconciliation with Jay to winning over Naveen’s parents.
Such structural flaws are to some degree to be expected though, this is not a well oiled studio machine or a subdued and measured art piece, but a witty and feelgood romantic comedy and the foundation stones of that genre lie in likable characters, winning performances and funny interaction which A Nice Indian Boy has aplenty. Particular standouts in this respect are Kim, who fills the comic bestie role with some dryly funny skits, Patel, who brings as much humor as heart to his familiar taciturn, repressed dad role, and Groff who brings a balance of maturity and sensitivity that’s incredibly endearing. The latter share possibly the best scene in the film as they learn to bond over their shared love of cooking. It’s just the kind of exceptionally wholesome stuff you want from a movie like this.
A Nice Indian Boy probably won’t be a tentpole in the arena of diverse, queer-friendly comedy that’s becoming an increasingly powerful force in today’s cinema, but that’s not through lack of mainstream appeal. It very well could make the kind of waves that The Big Sick or Crazy Rich Asians did, but I don’t think it’s going to benefit from the same push they did. It’ll be reliant on word of mouth and for my part I’m going to be recommending this film a lot once it becomes widely available.
