'A Nice Indian Boy' Review: Culture Collides in Charming Rom-Com

Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff work so well

A tale as old as time is that of “two people meet, decide to marry, and complications ensue.” We’ve seen that diversely played out in everything from the original Father of the Bride to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And a story doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel in order to cement itself as utterly charming and pleasant while walking that familiar path. Such is the case with director Roshan Sethi’s A Nice Indian Boy. The film, a queer romance that explores the generational and culture divide in Indian culture, is fated to put a smile on your face due to its leads, Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff.

Naveen Gavaskar (Soni) is a highly introverted doctor content to do little outside of his job short of interacting with his loud Indian family who routinely ask him when he’ll get married. One day he meets charismatic photographer Jay Kurundkar (Groff), a white man adopted by Indian parents. The pair hit it off and decide to embark on a relationship, but Naveen’s fear of his family, and inability to be open about who he is, threatens to break them up.

Eric Randall’s story, based off Madhuri Shekar’s play of the same name, takes a familiar theme: of two disparate people brought together by love and finds some unique ways to pick it apart. A Nice Indian Boy does this most effectively in how it plays with Groff’s Jay being a white man, yet also having a deep connection to his Indian adoptive parents’ heritage. Nearly everyone is thrown by Naveen and Jay’s relationship, not because Naveen is gay — as he says, his parents accept that he’s gay but they’ve never seen him “be” gay — but they never presumed Jay would be a white man. The script never gets too heavy with this premise to look at things like white privilege, but it does have some great moments of humor in navigating the presumption that one can’t be white and Indian.

Outside of that, the usual relationship tribulations are present and accounted for: Naveen thinks Jay is too dramatic where he is quiet. Jay is a hopeless romantic where Naveen is a dour realist. Naveen struggles to admit Jay is his partner and, later, tries to deal with all the issues inherent in pulling off an Indian wedding. What keeps everything buoyant is through the interactions between Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff.

Each brings a warmth and relatability to their characters that is charming. It’s easy to see why the two would fall for each other. Soni finds the vulnerability in a character like Naveen, a man described by Jay as practically apologizing for the inconvenience of existing. Soni is able to punctuate a laugh line as capably as do a grand romantic gesture (which Naveen admits is mortifying to him). Groff, though, is the scene stealer as the exuberant Jay.

Every time Groff smiles it’s impossible for the audience not to join him. He plays the character as a man just happy to be alive, who finds the beauty and joy in everything, a fact no doubt enhanced by his character’s history in the foster system. In one scene, Jay and Naveen’s father, Archit (Harish Patel), discuss their mutual abusive fathers, bonding over their ability to be resilient.

Because of the inherent personal and cultural distinctions between the couple, A Nice Indian Boy works the best when it’s actively focused on the pair getting to know each other. The moments of watching Jay try to draw Naveen out of his shell and Naveen confronting his own notions about what being gay and Indian actually means. The introduction of Naveen’s overly nosey family also is at its strongest when the pair are starting out. A trip to meet the folks sees Naveen’s sister, Arundhathi (Sunita Mani), complain about how accepting her parents are of Jay when she wouldn’t be given the same opportunities, while his parents try to “bond” with the pair by making everyone watch OutTV. It’s a moment of all-around humor when everything — cultural, gender, generational — just sings.

Broken up into chapters the first two, detailing Naveen and Jay’s meeting, and the pair’s eventual story works. We see the pair immediately fall into a romance, almost a bit too quickly, and then navigate their friend groups and family with Naveen hesitant to admit Jay is his boyfriend at all. This is more than enough for a movie and yet, at just 90 minutes, the movie blitzes through and then has to find more to fill the time. So the back half becomes the pair’s engagement and eventual wedding.

Though it is nice to see their entire relationship go full circle, it becomes less about Jay and Naveen and more about Naveen’s family coming to terms with the wedding, coupled with a subplot about Arundhathi’s divorce. The story becomes less about the cultural divide and more a nuanced exploration of changing cultural norms around arranged marriages. This, in itself, is fascinating but doesn’t have the room to breathe as it’s thrown in amongst all the wedding humor. It would have been stronger to focus the story on one half of the relationship or the other.

A Nice Indian Boy itself is a nice romantic-comedy. Soni and Groff elevate the humor, and the supporting cast gives everything a lived-in feel. The script is a tad shaggy but the movie’s brief runtime and exuberance more than make up for it.

Grade: C+