A Nice Indian Boy

Directed by Roshan Sethi, written by Eric Randall from a play by Madhuri Shekar
In US theaters now
Levantine Films; Wayfarer Studios

Here at Letterboxd, we’ve been fully on board the Roshan Sethi and Karan Soni bandwagon since 7 Days, their lockdown-set rom-com written by the duo (who are real-life partners), directed by Sethi and starring Soni and Geraldine Viswanathan. Their latest, A Nice Indian Boy, sees the pair taking on Madhuri Shekar’s play about Naveen (Soni), a gay man from a traditional Indian family who is struggling with feeling accepted by his parents, but also wanting to introduce them to his new white boyfriend Jay (Jonathan Groff). Speaking with Letterboxd, Soni explains how the film was a reaction to “What it feels like growing up and seeing these grand love stories, but not seeing yourself in them,” sharing that “hopefully this movie will allow more people to see themselves in this kind of story.”

A Nice Indian Boy doesn’t hide from its emotions, possessing a spirit that the star says “feels like the Bollywood version of a Hollywood movie,” as the story leans hard on Naveen and Jay’s shared love of Bollywood classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (which has a 4.0 average rating on Letterboxd!). “By definition, a rom-com is supposed to make us feel, and boy was I all up in my emotions with this one,” writes Shiv, while Rahul asserts, “this sweet, funny and deeply emotional rom-com isn’t just a love story; it’s a celebration of culture, identity and the beautiful chaos of family. The film brilliantly balances heartfelt moments with infectious humor, all while paying a fantastic tribute to Bollywood’s grand, romantic soul.

“The broader world’s version of love is much more unembarassed of being corny,” Sethi explains, “Americans have such a resistance to sentimentality, even though they secretly crave it.” While A Nice Indian Boy goes big and lets its characters (sometimes literally) sing out their desires, it also beautifully tackles the nuanced dimensions of love, and how it’s an action that requires effort and time. This shines through most brilliantly in the relationship between Naveen’s parents Megha and Archit, whose complicated devotion to one another is captured masterfully by Zarna Garg and Harish Patel. “Love sometimes is literally so big and profound, it feels uncontainable,” Sethi says. “Its vastness is unimaginable. And then at times it’s as simple as putting out the trash.” A Nice Indian Boy takes all of the earnest, tender sincerity and nuanced cultural themes Sethi and Soni explored in 7 Days and levels them up for something even more expansive, possessing the knowledge that love comes in all shapes and sizes, and each is as valid as the next. It’s also just really damn funny. MB

Blue Sun Palace

Written and directed by Constance Tsang
Opening April 25 in New York and LA before expanding across the US
Dekanalog

Shot on hazy 35mm, writer-director Constance Tsang’s feature debut Blue Sun Palace follows the unlikely connection formed between two migrants, Amy (Wu Ke-xi) and Cheung (longtime Tsai Ming-liang collaborator Lee Kang-sheng), living in Queens after the death of their mutual friend Didi (Xu Haipeng). Tsang’s feature luxuriates in long takes, filmed with a smooth precision by DP Norm Li, which Alexei praises for the “truly powerful verisimilitude achieved,” adding that the lack of cuts, “relieve[s] us of tension or even [the reminder] that we are watching a film.” Set between two Lunar New Year celebrations, most of the movie takes places within the confines of the massage parlors in Flushing where Amy and Didi worked, lived and otherwise found the comfort of community within the diaspora. As Amy and Cheung find solace in their grief together, they also slowly realize that some losses cut deeper than others.

Blue Sun Palace played festivals around the world, where it left viewers breathless. Writing out of the world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival attendee Bozz14 agrees, having been “completely transfixed by this. Haven’t stopped thinking about it since I left the cinema. Quiet in execution but the emotion couldn’t be any louder.” The meditative film similarly hit for Ben, who saw it at the Vancouver International Film Festival and “left the theater in a daze and felt punch-drunk the rest of the night. It’s kind of amazing how this mode of filmmaking can make me feel.” MEG

Asog

Written by Seán Devlin, Arnel Pablo and Rey Jaya Aclao; Directed by Seán Devlin
Available to rent or buy in the US
Film Movement

How do people go on living after a climate catastrophe? Seán Devlin’s Asog lives in that aftermath, following the devastating 2013 Super Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. Starring Filipino comedian Jaya, this docu-fiction follows their road-trip with a fellow student (Arnel Pablo, playing himself) to Sicogon Island. An adventure in tone—funny one moment, heartbreaking the next—Asog is unwieldy in its ambitions.

James captures the scope well: “Asog takes what sounds like a fairly straightforward story idea and transforms it into something completely unique... In the aftermath of unfathomable tragedy, we don’t always have the option to do things ‘correctly’; we have to move forward. Asog asks us to delight in the detours and bring vigor to everything. You don’t know how you can help until you actually do it.”

Devlin finds hope in his two leads. “What’s the point of being reliable when the world increasingly isn’t?” Jaya asks at one point. Landon sums it up nicely: “So much heart in one film. Jaya was the perfect messenger to examine the layers of destruction and resilience in the Philippines. Spotlighting the systemic issues of land theft, generational wrath, climate disaster, queer liberation, and colonization never felt heavy handed and were deeply rooted in joy. I’ll be thinking of Jaya for a while.” DM

April

Written and directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili
In US theaters April 25
Metrograph Pictures / BFI

A handful of recent films (see also: The Substance) resurrect the archetype of the hag: a woman, typically older, who lives outside of society because of her perceived ugliness, which marks her as evil in a world that values female beauty above all. Hags are meant to be terrifying, but Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili takes a pro-hag stance in April, her radical reimagining of the concept. Kulumbegashvili ties hags to abortionists and the witches of yore through the character of Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), an OB-GYN accused of malpractice after an infant dies in her care. As we learn in a series of ominous, apprehensive long takes, Nina’s persecution is less about what happened at the hospital than what she’s been doing outside of it.

Nina is the de facto abortionist in her village, doing work that no one else will do outside of the law and without the approval of the community. In this way, she’s a martyr. But she’s also cold, withholding and difficult to get to know, even when the camera literally puts us inside her head in first-person perspective shots. “What’s shown is almost less important than what’s omitted or left offscreen,” Nora observes, and Kulumbegashvili allows plenty of time to study the frame, in compositions both breathtakingly beautiful and deeply unsettling—including particularly intriguing shots of a grotesque female figure with a bald head and drooping breasts, who stands in for Nina throughout the film.