A Nice Indian Boy

A Movie Review

By HoJo Roo Jun 17, 2026

Karan Soni and Johnthan Groff in A Nice Indian Boy.

Summer is finally here!

Alright, friends, grab a cold one and pull up a chair. It’s time to dust off the old critical faculties. Since I traded teaching American Sign Language to deaf kids out here in the rural sticks to locking myself in the A/C,  my "To Be Watched" , longer than a CVS receipt, is starting to be whittled down. I stumbled across A Nice Indian Boy in one of those PRIDE MONTH recommendations on Hulu, and knew I wanted to see it.  It immediately jumped to the top of the queue. 

Why? 

Because I have a massive, lifelong weakness for ethnic cinema and cross-cultural rom-coms. Blame my upbringing. Watching Crossing Delancey was a sacred ritual with my Jewish father and my fascinated Irish mother. 

Heck, my own wedding to my husband was such a chaotic, multi-day spectacle it mirrored My Big Fat Greek Wedding in every way except the bride had a beard and a 48-inch chest. These kinds of movies have a formula, sure, and they often dance on the knife's edge of inappropriate cultural stereotypes. But when they hit that sweet spot of culture-specific comedy? 

Man, it’s cinematic comfort food.

So let’s look at A Nice Indian Boy, directed by Roshan Sethi.

Karan Soni deals with family. Been there, bro, been there. 

The Pitch: Bollywood Meets Boy-Meets-Boy

Here’s the spoiler-free rundown. 

We follow Naveen (Karan Soni), a tightly wound, chronically polite Indian-American doctor whose traditional parents are desperate for him to settle down. Enter Jay (Jonathan Groff), a charming, free-spirited photographer who is a total curveball: he’s a white guy, but he was adopted and raised by traditional Indian parents. He loves the culture, prays to Ganesha, and wants the whole nine yards. When Naveen brings Jay home, his parents are forced to reconcile their theoretical acceptance of their gay son with the reality of helping him plan the most lavish, high-drama, traditional Indian wedding the neighborhood has ever seen.

See? Been there. 

However, for these two? Yeah, chemistry.  

The Critique: Shines Bright, Stumbles Often 

Look, let’s be real, friends.

. As much as I wanted to fall head over heels for this, it’s a mediocre piece of celluloid.

The film relies heavily on predictable cultural tropes, dragging out the well-worn Bollywood cliches and the exact generational pains we've seen a thousand times before. 

Okay, maybe I have seen a thousand times. I can’t speak for you.

It’s trying to say something profound about how cultures evolve, how traditions stretch, and how love bridges the gap. Great themes. Crucial conversations. But the screenplay handles them with the subtlety of a pile-driver. It gets incredibly heavy-handed when it should be nimble.

But then there's Jonathan Groff.

The Groff Factor: Listen, Groff is the reason this movie made it onto my TBW list in the first place. The man radiates pure star-shine. The script tries to paint his character, Jay, as a bit of a reformed "bad boy," but let's be honest—Jonathan Groff has the inherent energy of a golden retriever who just learned a magic trick. He doesn't quite sell the edge, but his sheer charisma elevates every frame he's in. And there is chemistry, a testimony to the leads.

Frankly, it's just nice to see a queer romance that isn't centered entirely around white people and their specific brand of neuroses. 

Sorry, but it’s true.

But the narrative pacing is a bit of a mess. Right in the middle of the presentation, the film takes a deeply bizarre tangent where our two protagonists arbitrarily elect to stop dating. It feels entirely forced, awkward, and structurally clunky—a manufactured speed bump just to kill time before the third act.

Strangely enough, though? 

The moment the movie stops trying to be an indie drama and leans back into those shamelessly broad, stereotypical family dynamics, I found myself locked back in.

The Verdict: A Mirror to the Shared Struggle 

So, no, I didn't love it as a masterclass in filmmaking. It’s flawed. I just couldn’t see the love so many of my cohorts saw in it.

But as a human being? 

I liked it.

I liked it because the emotional core is deeply relatable to anyone who grew up ethnic, distinct, or "other." There is a specific, universal ache in being raised on a diet of rigid cultural rituals—where you are explicitly taught that the ultimate goal is to get married, have kids, and honor the family—only to realize you aren't completely allowed to participate in those milestones. Not until your family drags themselves across the line to meet you halfway.

Watching Naveen navigate that cultural negotiation brought me right back to my own nuptials, standing there hoping my family would truly see me. A Nice Indian Boy might not win points for novelty, but it understands that particular heartache perfectly. It’s worth a watch, if only to see Groff flash those pearly whites and to remind ourselves that the fight to be included at our own family tables is a story worth telling.

So, where does that leave us? Honestly, I’m stuck in the middle of the road, and I’m actually kind of kicking myself for it, you know? I truly, deeply wanted to be swept away by this one.

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