Movie Review: A NICE INDIAN BOY

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: April 4th, 2025 / 01:33 AM

A NICE INDIAN BOY movie poster | ©2025 Blue Harbor Entertainment

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Karan Soni, Jonathan Groff, Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg, Harish Patel, Peter S. Kim, Sas Goldberg, Sachin Sahel
Writer: Eric Randall, based on the play by Madhuri Shekar
Director: Roshan Sethi
Distributor: Blue Harbor Entertainment
Release Date: April 4, 2025

Based on the play by Madhuri Shekar and directed by Roshan Sethi from a screenplay by Eric Randall, A NICE INDIAN BOY is an amiable if sometimes highly sentimental gay romcom.

Naveen Gavaskar (Karan Soni) provides some opening narration, explaining that he was twenty-five years old when his slightly older sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani) had her big Indian-North American wedding.

After some disastrous college romances, Arundhathi agreed to be fixed up with what their mother Megha (Zarna Garg) describes as “a nice Indian boy.” Arundhathi’s groom, Manish Rau (Sachin Sahel), comes from a good family and is going into the medical profession. Megha and her husband, Naveen and Arundhathi’s father Archit (Harish Patel), are overjoyed at the match.

Naveen wonders what will happen when he finds “a nice Indian boy” of his own. His parents know he’s gay but have never met any of Naveen’s boyfriends. Naveen assumes they’d rather not hear about it.

Flash forward six years. Naveen is now a doctor. He meets exceptionally nice Jay Kurundkar (Jonathan Groff), who is culturally Indian although he’s white (his adoptive parents, now passed, were Indian). Jay is a professional photographer who is extremely romantic, given to belting out songs from his favorite Bollywood musical, 1995’s DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE (a real movie, known to all the characters as DDLJ).

Things get serious, but Jay is hurt when Naveen drags his heels about presenting Jay to his parents. Arundhathi, meanwhile, is furious that Naveen gets what she sees as free rein, when she entered into what was essentially an arranged marriage.

A NICE INDIAN BOY goes more or less where we fully expect it to go. It’s a mostly agreeable journey, thanks to the appeal of the cast. Soni makes Naveen so abashed that we can’t really get angry at him for his reticence, while Groff (who, it should be noted, voices the princely lumberjack in the FROZEN franchise) wells up beautifully and registers being thrilled in a manner that is thrilling.

Mani is expertly exasperated as Arundhathi, and Garg and Sahel are excellent as the longtime married couple.

Director Sethi composes some visually pretty sequences, including an extended conversation in a doorway with blooming plants reflected in the sliding door. He also handles the drama with restraint, so that even some over-the-top behavior comes off as something people might actually do.

There’s something very sweet in having tradition be so important in this context, and it’s also pleasing to see some aspects of Hinduism as a regular part of the characters’ lives. With its emphasis on family and culture, A NICE INDIAN BOY winds up feeling pretty wholesome, without crossing over into smugness. It’s, well, nice.

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