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    ‘A Nice Indian Boy’ Review: Meet-Cute at a Hindu Temple

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    Thanks to the instant chemistry between Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff, the film pulls off their whirlwind romance.Jay (Jonathan Groff) and Naveen (Karan Soni) experience their first meet-cute while worshiping at the same Hindu temple, united by their shared culture: Naveen is Indian, and Jay is white with adoptive Indian parents.Early on, the film “A Nice Indian Boy” hints at this swift romantic pace when Naveen’s mother, Megha (Zarna Garg, a standout), pokes at the familiar tropes of gay romance films while on a phone call with Naveen. “They just give each other a look, and like, boom, they’re kissing,” she says.Thanks to the instant chemistry between Groff and Soni, whose wit and vulnerability make him a natural rom-com lead, the film pulls off their whirlwind romance. Glances between them convey Naveen’s internal struggle to be open to his family about Jay, and Jay’s corresponding frustration with Naveen’s hesitation. True to the genre, there are heartbreaking fallouts, followed by tender reconciliations.Throughout the movie, the director Roshan Sethi’s sly and thoughtful touches respect conventions — the ultimate fairy-tale ending, for instance — while deepening the story with cultural nuances, like how Naveen’s same-sex relationship affects his sister, Arundhathi (Sunita Mani), who is in an arranged marriage. What happens when one sibling can break the rules but the other cannot? Within a family rooted in tradition, Naveen emerges as a quiet but powerful authority on true love — a rare, significant role for a gay character.In this vibrant addition to cinema’s romantic landscape, love isn’t the only winner: cultural understanding and the freedom to choose your own path triumph as well.A Nice Indian BoyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘World’s Best’ Review: Straight Outta Calculus

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      A math prodigy channels the spirit of his rapper father in this lively musical.“World’s Best,” from the director Roshan Sethi, is a vibrant kid’s musical set to a simple beat. The seventh grade calculus prodigy Prem Patel (Manny Magnus) longs to be as cool and confident as his dad, Suresh (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a rapper who died of cancer when the boy was five years old. Prem’s mother, Priya (Punam Patel), is proud to raise a mathlete — until Prem slips on his father’s gold chain necklace and dad magically appears to inspire him to bust a rhyme at the school talent show. “I’m like a memory remixed with a fantasy,” Suresh says with a grin. I’d go with hype man or hype ghost.Suresh performed in the aughts, but wears ’90s Timberlands and worships the ’80s hitmaker Doug E. Fresh. Maybe the whiz kid can calculate the rate at which nostalgia flattens time? Yet, the script, by Ambudkar and Jamie King, is otherwise attuned to the emotional and comedic details, like when Priya seeks solace in a podcast on grief only to be interrupted by an ad for oat milk.Still, we’re here for the music which builds from subtle, classroom-rattling percussion — imagine the sound of pencils clacking on retainers — to a Hype Williams homage filmed in a five-sided cube with a fisheye lens. The rapping is great but the lyrics are strained (“Think Pythagoras meets Dr. Seuss/Square my sides to find my hypotenuse”) and the music is tinny and canned. I think Sethi wants to emphasize that these ditties are fantasies, but the overall effect is too phony. What works is the high energy, kooky cast who fling themselves into the carefree choreography — especially Magnus, a mugging, contagious delight.World’s BestRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      ‘7 Days’ Review: Mothers’ Matchmaking Goes Awry

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      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 DaysNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More