Going through the reviews and comments about the movie, it seems everybody has rated it and viewed it from Indian point of view. I liked the review posted by pavithra where she has given very good background of the movie and her views. In this review, I am not going to repeat what has already been posted but am going to describe why I think this movie is good. Before you read this review please read the review posted by Pavithra to get more information and background of this movie. I have posted this as comments too on her review but thought it would be easier for people to read and understand this if I post this separately.
I came to US 5 years back and have made many friends around. Has seen lot of Indians born and brought up here and have interacted with them quite a bit. My review about the movie goes like this.
1) Kris getting upset: Justifiable. The way they have shown is totally correct. Here many people do feel that way. I know Prashant changed his name to Pinto, Darshan to Dan, etc etc. Here people generally call each other by first name no matter what age group is. Also, people here choose their first name and keep it what they like. They don’t care about their birth name. Like I work with a person who call herself Cheeta but her birth name is Lauren. She gets mad if people call her by that name. So I think it’s very well depicted in the movie.
2) Cooking fiasco: very well portrayed. Students here generally eat in cafeteria and they don’t know what they are eating. They like the taste and that’s it. If you ask them whets in it, they won’t know it. Its US culture.
3) Cultural clash is shown very well between Jagjit and his father. Jagjit though good in arts his fathers who has Indian mentality forces him to take engineering.
4) Personal observation has made me believe, guys mixes with different cultures and adapts to that very fast than girls, who likes to keep and maintain its ethnical background as much as they could. This was very well depicted in the nature of Kris and Nina.
I would say, movie was well made and only drawback was the classroom scene where a guy from India, who was a TA and screws up in calling names and coming late etc etc.
If you want to enjoy this movie watch it as if u r not Indian but as if u are born in US with Indian roots. If you stick to just Indian culture and ethics, you won’t like it.
Enjoy
Rahul