{"id":22448,"date":"2024-03-13T22:42:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T02:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448"},"modified":"2024-03-13T22:42:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T02:42:25","slug":"sxsw-review-finding-love-in-a-nice-indian-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448","title":{"rendered":"SXSW Review &#8211; Finding Love in \u2018A Nice Indian Boy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who doesn\u2019t want to find the perfect person to spend their life with and have a dream wedding? That desire can be complicated by factors like family and cultural traditions, which may not, for instance, be nearly as accepting of two men getting married as they are of a groom kissing his bride. <\/span><b><i>A Nice Indian Boy <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">offers a delightfully awkward, humorous, and uplifting take on the topic, following its Indian-American protagonist as he embarks on his first truly serious relationship that will have to be strong enough to survive his family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Naveen (Karan Soni) is first seen at the wedding of his sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani), where everyone keeps telling him he\u2019s next and all he can think about is how he wants the same thing that his sister has found: a nice Indian boy. The nervous doctor is surprised to meet Jay (Jonathan Groff), a freelance photographer who was adopted by Indian parents. After they connect, things are going well until Jay realizes that Naveen is holding back from introducing him to his parents Megha (Zarna Garg) and Archit (Harish Patel), who know their son is gay but have never actually met one of his boyfriends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>A Nice Indian Boy<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> comes from director Roshan Sethi, Soni\u2019s real life-partner who expressed a mixture of disbelief and joy that he wasn\u2019t yet out six years ago and now had his mother there with him at this film\u2019s SXSW world premiere. Sethi and Soni last collaborated on the script for the pandemic-set romantic comedy <\/span><b><i>7 Days<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with Sethi directing and Soni starring opposite Geraldine Viswanathan, and it\u2019s wonderful to see them back together again, working from a screenplay by Eric Randall based on the play by Madhuri Shekar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What may be funniest about this film is its presentation of stereotypes acted out by Naveen\u2019s parents, punctuated by the way in which both he and Arundhathi respond to them. They almost know what to expect each time and in some cases don\u2019t even let them say what they\u2019re about to, bracing themselves for the worst and acting preemptively to avoid being insulted. Arundhathi is particularly furious about how apparently accepting her parents now seem about Naveen\u2019s choice to date a white guy after pushing her so much to get married and then asking every time she comes over whether she\u2019s pregnant yet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s endearing in this comedy to see the attempts that Megha and Archit make to try to understand their son, which probably aren\u2019t as effective as actually being curious about his day-to-day life would be. Megha describing the plot of <\/span><b><i>Milk<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over the phone to Naveen is one such instance, as is their regular viewing of OUTtv to see just what it is that might interest their son. While surely exaggerated, this type of behavior does seem quite realistic, well-intentioned but just slightly missing the mark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Soni is a talented actor who excels at showing his physical discomfort with situations, and that serves him well in this role, especially opposite Groff, who during their first date begins singing a song from a famous Indian movie on the street. Soni and Groff have great chemistry, though Jay feels like the least developed character in the film, which may be fitting given that it\u2019s not really about him. Mani and Patel are great as always, and it\u2019s particularly impressive to see renowned comedian Garg make an excellent acting debut. This film is highly enjoyable, capturing the specifics of one culture in a way that will please those who know it well and remind anyone else of their own heritage and traditions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Grade: B+<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/author\/abe-friedtanzer\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Check out more of Abe Friedtanzer\u2019s articles<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>A Nice Indian Boy <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">makes its world premiere in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/schedule.sxsw.com\/2024\/films\/2196951\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Narrative Spotlight section<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who doesn\u2019t want to find the perfect person to spend their life with and have a dream wedding? That desire can be complicated by factors like family and cultural traditions, which may not, for instance, be nearly as accepting of two men getting married as they are of a groom kissing his bride. A Nice&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[21072,5032,1713,10021,10317,12824,134,20943,21073],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SXSW Review - Finding Love in \u2018A Nice Indian Boy\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Karan Soni reteams with his real-life partner Roshan Sethi for A Nice Indian Boy, an entertaining comedy about finding love.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SXSW Review - Finding Love in \u2018A Nice Indian Boy\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Karan Soni reteams with his real-life partner Roshan Sethi for A Nice Indian Boy, an entertaining comedy about finding love.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cinema Daily US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-03-14T02:42:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/A-Nice-Indian-Boy.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1140\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"641\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Abe Friedtanzer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Abe Friedtanzer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448\",\"name\":\"SXSW Review - Finding Love in \u2018A Nice Indian Boy\u2019\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/A-Nice-Indian-Boy.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-03-14T02:42:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-14T02:42:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10\"},\"description\":\"Karan Soni reteams with his real-life partner Roshan Sethi for A Nice Indian Boy, an entertaining comedy about finding love.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/A-Nice-Indian-Boy.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/A-Nice-Indian-Boy.jpg\",\"width\":1140,\"height\":641,\"caption\":\"Credit: David Bukach\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=22448#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"SXSW Review &#8211; 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