Two Indian American youngsters are set up on a date that takes an unexpected turn in this pandemic-themed comedy.
There’s an endearing perversity to “7 Days,” Roshan Sethi’s bad-date-gone-wrong caper that updates rom-com clichés with cultural and topical details. For one, the date between the Indian American youngsters Rita (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Ravi (Karan Soni) is arranged by their mothers via a matrimonial website. “Her hobbies include caring for her future in-laws,” Rita’s profile reads in the film’s opening. If you think catfishing is bad, meet mom-fishing: The fibs are laced with parental disappointment.
Then there’s the timing. It’s March 2020, at the cusp of the coronavirus pandemic. Ravi — who turns out to be just as nerdy, neurotic and rigidly traditional as his profile promised — arrives with masks and surgical gloves and cans of Hard Lemonade that he pours out in horror when he realizes they’re alcoholic. Rita’s homely good-girl avatar, on the other hand, belies a ring of falseness. Sure enough, when their phones explode with news of shutdowns, and they head back to Rita’s, Ravi receives a righteous shock: Beer bottles and chicken wings are strewn over a never-used kitchen stove, and when Rita takes a call from “Daddy” … it’s not what Ravi expected.
The masks are off (so to speak), and the two are stuck together for a week until Ravi can get a car home. The bickering and bonding that ensue are predictable, but for the most part, “7 Days” resists easy rom-com wins. The eventual Bollywood-style happy ending notwithstanding, Ravi and Rita’s incompatibility is too real — and Soni and Viswanathan’s comic timing too sharp — to permit a mawkish tale of opposites who attract. Instead, “7 Days” takes a warm, witty look at the kinds of companionship that can emerge even — or especially — in the most unromantic, pragmatic of circumstances.
7 Days
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
