A Nice Indian Boy is a warm, hilarious new romantic comedy

A Nice Indian Boy is a new romantic comedy that combines the intergenerational laughs of a My Big Fat Greek Wedding with a Bollywood romance.

The film from Canadian filmmaker Roshan Sethi follows an introvert named Naveen (played by Karan Soni) as he struggles to introduce his Indian family to his boyfriend Jay (played by Jonathan Groff), who happens to be a white man raised by Indian parents.

Today on Commotion, culture writers Jovanté Anderson and Siddhant Adlakha, as well as author Jael Richardson join guest host Rad Simonpillai to talk about how the rom-com is flipping the genre's tropes for the better.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full show, including a review of Viola Davis's new action thriller G20 and a discussion on the drama between The White Lotus's creator and its theme song's composer, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Rad: Siddhant, you loved this movie. In your review for Mashable, you wrote, "Rarely has a rom-com been this simultaneously hysterical and touching." What'd you mean by that?

Siddhant: I think the strength of a movie like this is the way it both builds on what's come before it while also doing something new…. [A Nice Indian Boy] uses the traditions of Hindi romantic cinema to tell a story that you don't normally get to see in that format, which is about two guys and one of them is white. And so culturally, it's trying to do a whole different thing while still staying rooted in the traditions of a lot of Indian romance — characters trying to both break out of existing molds and traditions, while still holding onto their culture and the things that make them who they are.

It's about love, and individuality and all these things, but it's also about family…. A lot of South Asian films made in Canada and the U.S. have the same sort of war between first-gen kids who want to do their own thing, and be their own individuals and leave their close-minded parents behind. But this, I think, strikes a delightful balance between the two.

Rad: I think what struck me about this movie is that it is following that same dynamic that we see in, like, Bend It Like Beckham in terms of that generational tension, but this one had a little more generosity, I think, towards the parents. And also more criticism towards our generation, where we're not necessarily giving our parents a chance; we are as guilty as they are of not trying to see the nuances of that existence. Jovanté, what do you take away from A Nice Indian Boy?

Jovanté: I really like the description of it as "hysterical" because I couldn't stop laughing. I had a lot of fun watching it, and I also thought that it's warm even to the very end…. I do wonder if it could have given a little bit more credit to immigrant cultures, because it does feel sometimes that it fell into this trope of the kind of backward — as much as they're trying, right? — the parents who don't know much about sexuality, and have to gain a pedagogy of sexuality through this other culture that they are now a part of…. 

I do think that this well-worn trope of the immigrant cultures who know nothing about sexuality, who come to the U.S., then learn about what it means to be gay through things like OUTtv — I think that the film could have played with that trope. Especially since, as Siddhant is saying, there were moments where you could see it leaning into thinking about what a rom-com could look like from a Bollywood perspective.

Rad: Jael, what do you make of what Jovanté's saying there?

Jael: I don't know if I fully agree…. You also see these really great ways where [the parents] are trying to understand. They're being very open. Being aware of queer culture is one part, I think, but having a queer family member is a whole different thing. And I think they're really trying to figure out, how do we bridge that? How do we make it not just that we're OK with this, but that we are right behind you, as supportive as we are with the daughter who is going through relationship issues of her own? So I really liked the way they handled that nuance….

My favourite thing was that Jay, the partner, is white, but he's been raised by this South Asian family. And I love the idea that we're flipping the transracial adoption trope on its head, and that we are seeing the South Asian family adopting this white child. I am a Black mom, my partner's Black, and we have a white daughter. And so I think seeing this enacted for me was really fun because … we're used to transracial adoption, but we're not used to it in this way. And I loved the way that provided a nuance…. I thought they took things we expect to see and things we're used to seeing, and pushed them in new directions. Seeing the dad watching queer TV to understand his son more, and then watching it with both of them there, I think are some moments that are really funny, and also help us push the conversation a little bit further than I've seen it done in films before.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.