A Nice Indian Boy is pure rom-com gold. It follows the rom-com formula to a T. Boy meets boy. Flaw within boy drives an obstacle between them. Boy learns, improves and goes and gets boy back. All of this is layered with safe yet fun cultural tropes which give the movie its unique spin. But it ends up giving you a big (if perhaps teary) smile at the end as all ends right with the world.
There is debate within queer popular culture about how much of our stories should be about the trauma of being queer in a homophobic world and how much should be about queer joy. I tend to see these things are not in conflict with each other but in dialogue. They are in that cliched two-sides-of-the-same-coin situation. Films like A Nice Indian Boy are about inserting that joy into the situations we anticipate as being traumatic.
A Nice Indian Boy is completely accessible to all audiences. We end up with something that is not only affirming for its queer audience but for its heteronormative audience as well. Everyone comes out looking and feeling good here. There is nothing undercutting any cultural tradition. This is a "love wins" movie that celebrates caring for each other. And there is nothing wrong with that.
It's also very funny and lets face it the litmus test for a rom com is that it is A: actually romantic, and B: actually funny. A Nice Indian Boy ticks both boxes. Soni proved himself oddly hilarious in the Deadpool movies and here he is adorably hilarious. But he's got good support in the case who play his family, especially Garg who steels much of the show.
A Nice Indian Boy is the sort of film that I could pretty much recommend to anyone and know they would have a good time. It also makes me hope we see Soni in a lot more films.
A Nice Indian Boy
Starring: Karan Soni, Jonathan Groff, Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg, Harish Patel, Peter S. Kim
Director: Roshan Sethi
Writers: Eric Randall, Madhuri Shekar
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