A Nice Indian Boy
Roshan Sethi
2024, 96 mins.
Family matters, Indian style
Let’s just say it: This is the cheesiest gay love story I’ve seen since Bollywood Beats (cross-reference below). But despite the entirely too on-the-nose writing, it’s a welcome breath of fresh lavender air as the increasingly dangerous and unsettled world around us teeters on the brink of calamity and despair.
The couple: hospital doctor and mid-twenties Naveen (boyishly portrayed by Karan Soni) readily falls head over Ganesh for Indian-raised but otherwise white photographer, Jay (Jonathan Groff tries his best but can’t quite find the much-needed compelling chemistry as their relationship blossoms from awkward romance to a pair of “I do” proposals).
Naveen’s parents frequently steal every scene the collective troupe is in. Mom (Zarna Garg entirely convincing from wedding planner to “Do I have a speech for you!), holds the family and production together with her wise commentaries while Dad (done with sly subtlety by Harush Patel), cooks up more than gourmet dinners as his inner character is artfully revealed. Elder sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani, appropriately haughty and stoic as required) is the ideal foil for the notion of the “joys” of arranged marriages.
Medical pal and entirely gay sidekick, Paul (Peter Kim) adds just the right amount of queer flamboyance to keep the humour flowing as the relationship drama unfolds.
Of course, the soundtrack (original score from Raashi Kulkarni) is a vital component and the most important character—especially fuelling the bookend weddings of this vibrant production. Feel free to dance along!
Do take a look and then decide for yourselves just how interracial relationships and love at first photo op can brighten anyone’s day. JWR
An Unfinished Film
Ye Lou
2024, 105 mins.
Forever a work in progress
Sometimes it’s a good idea to select a movie on its title rather than watch the trailer and/or read the synopsis. Short, publicity-driven snippets can do more harm than good when deciding to watch something new.
Imagine shooting most of a first film in 2009, but never seeing it completed because the money ran out (likely thousands of those stillborn productions nowhere near final edit all around the globe).
Imagine having the tenacity a decade later to say, “OK, let’s adjust the script for age and finish what we started!”
Imagine the original plot focussing on three apparently gay men in various states of relationship bliss or envy, then reassembling the original actors only to find them happily married (see “adjust the script” above).
Imagine finally convincing one and all to set up shop in a hotel near Wuhan China with the promise that “that’s a wrap” will be called in order for everyone to get back home in plenty of time for Chinese New Year (January 25, 2020, Year of the Rat).
Imagine a rampant virus shutting everything down with just a few scenes left—again—and then being quarantined in your hotel until April!
Ye’s film (along with cowriter Yingli Ma) brings these fantastic, largely true-to-life tales to the screen with an inventiveness and large dose of reality that offers the rest of the planet a firsthand look at just what the early stages of what a global pandemic looks like from the inside out.
The leading man, Jiang Cheng, Hao Qin turns in a most credible performance as the reluctant father of one, now preferring a quiet home life (“Am I a coward?”, he wonders) who agrees to step in front of the camera again a decade later. Wife Sang Qi (mostly seen on cellphone camera shots) readily exudes simultaneous love and apprehension for her spouse and infant toddler. Binding both the film-within-the-film and the film-“without”-the-film is Xiaorui Mao as the ever-patient director then and now.
Beyond the surface narrative, some of the most powerful moments in this wide-ranging production come from actual Wuhan footage as COVID changes so many lives enduring the realities of lockdowns, smackdowns (after enough is enough) or, sadly early graves.
Truly a joy to behold for humanity, is the spontaneous dance party in the hotel corridor, demonstratively breaking the “stay confined to our room” rule imposed by the authorities.
And, of course, that is why this truly is an unfinished film because more pandemic chapters are waiting to be written whether we choose to prepare for them (er, hello there, RFK Jr.) or not. JWR