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), is hostile? Yes, to all that. But somehow, Jay seems more like a fantasy 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.
