A  Nice Indian Boy, When Mother Knows Best

A  Nice Indian Boy, When Mother Knows Best

Rating: ***

In that recent Tamil  film Kaadhal Enbadhu Podhu Udamai, when the  daughter  brings her same-sex  lover  home for dinner, the  mother(Rohini)  loses all control.

The  mother in A  Nice Indian Boy,Megha, played with warmth  curiosity  dread and acceptance by Zarna Garg is  much more  accommodating.  I won’t say she is a true liberal, although Megha  would like to  think she is. When her son Naveen(Karan Soni) brings  home his boyfriend Jay(Jonathan Groff), Mom Megha welcomes him as  she ought to:  a liberal Indian mom who wants only  her son to be happy.

Of course in actuality life’s decisions are not  that simply  laid out on the table. It is this struggle to  do the right thing which makes Megha one of the most special mothers I’ve seen  on screen  in recent times.

Unlike  other conservative mothers who don’t even  put on a  show of acceptance, at least  Megha tries.She is  my Mom Of The Year.For trying. Her husband( a grumpy Harish Patel)  doesn’t even  try. He just  shuts off all judgement  and  goes with his  wife’s liberal take on their son’s gay wedding.

That is  not really a  solution.  It is sweeping the  issue under the carpet. I  can see Naveen’s father questioning his  son-in-law’s place  in the family in the sequel.

 The  other characters in this  likeable same-sex rom-com make their transitions too abruptly to be considered  convincing. Naveen and  Jay bond over Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, which is   a bit of  a boring bluff.

Would  you really fall in love with someone  who  plays out a whole song from  DDLJ on the street , doing  voices and  all?But  Naveen does(not because of the DDLJ  act but in spite  of it). Such is love. I take that for what it is said to be.

On screen, I saw  as much chemistry between Naveen and Jay as   between Fawad Khan and his boyfriend in Kapoor & Sons. The boyfriend in Fawad’s film was  only a  voice  on the phone. In A Nice Indian Boy, Jay could be  just  that. He is  agreeable  but shadowy , and worse, inconsistent. Why would he  lock himself in the bathroom to smoke weed when he has  come to meet Jay’s parents?

  Jay is nervous?  Naveen’s family especially his aggressive sister Arundhati(Sunita Mani) are hostile? Yes, to all that.  But somehow , Jay seems more like a fantasty figure from a  gay Mills & Boon plot than real.

Everything in this  film is rose-tinted and  fairytale like. If it still manages to  score some  points,  it is  because it means well.

And  additionally, this  is the  first occasion when we actually get to see two men getting married  in  a big  fat  Indian wedding officiated  by a  Hindu pandit, in  true  ‘Bollywood’ style. There is a  heart bleating rather than  beating in A  Nice  Indian  Boy. The  plea for acceptance of homosexuality is endearing , even  persuasive.   But it is not conclusive or even halfway convincing.