Wedding Season (2022)
In the Little India of New Jersey, tradition and modern love fight to the finish.
Wedding Season (2022)
Streaming on Netflix
Ravi (Suraj Sharma) and Asha (Pallavi Sharda) beginning to click in Wedding Season
In New Jersey’s Little India, summer is the season to get hitched. One after another, nuptials in the prosperous immigrant community beguile, like doves taking flight. Couples reverently recite vows. In lavish receptions, showers of flower petals enchant. Toasts, with wine glasses held aloft, foretell happiness. Beaming celebrants crowd the dance floor.
In Wedding Season, I think we’re meant to sense that Indians do this stuff in extra earnestness, with a nearly ingrown conviction that witnessing marital vows lifts and ennobles the spirit. An irrepressible joy emanates from the bride and groom, settling gently on all who watch. The unmarried in attendance can’t help wondering: Why shouldn’t I be next?
Their mothers, way ahead of them, want answers to that very question. As the movie opens, in voiceover we hear an online dating profile narrated – it’s also being composed – by one such yearning Indian American mother, Suneeta (Veena Sood). As she writes rapturously on her computer screen, she’s pretending to be her elder daughter, Asha (Pallavi Sharda).
Suneeta has merrily concocted “biodata” on behalf of the ambitious but, alas, determinedly single Asha. A photo of the beautiful, accomplished young woman beckons to credentialed, single Indian men. Her mother makes it clear, crucially, that Asha won’t settle for less than an “Indian Prince Charming” with a “professional job and MBA.”
We get to see the real Asha as the harried professional economist she actually is, overworked, often exhausted, skill-less outside the demands of her job, and not remotely interested in finding a mate. She’s recently blown up her engagement to a financial wunderkind named Krish and wants nothing more to do with him or Wall Street.
Instead, she’s gone philanthropic, working long hours for a New Jersey microfinancing firm that underwrites businesses for poor women in southeast Asia. Who needs a husband to help accomplish that?
Suneeta (Veena Sood) entreats reluctant daughter Asha (Pallavi Sharda) to stick with Ravi in Wedding Season
The problem is, online, Suneeta has already set up a date for Asha with the handsome Ravi (Suraj Sharma), and his profile tells us why: he entered MIT at 16, was the youngest Indian to win the National Spelling Bee and heads his own startup. Reluctantly, Asha agrees to go on one date with this Ravi person, whoever he might be.
As we bask in cinematographer Meena Singh’s pastoral color scheme – New Jersey is heightened, inching toward nirvana – we feel a matchup coming on. The charm of Shiwani Srivastava’s screenplay is its smooth delay of the inevitable. The hesitant couple are stubborn. Who ever said love is easy? No one. And marriage? That step may be the hardest.
Their first date is a shambles. Ravi isn’t as committed to the acquisition of money and status as his online profile (written by his mother) suggests. He’s set aside money from his startup, so he’s happily underemployed. And he’s not cowed by career-obsessed women like Asha, who look down on him because he can afford to live a simple life. The two don’t even finish their lunch together.
Clearly, this couple has no future. Undeterred, Suneeta insists that in the coming Indian wedding season Asha must attend multiple ceremonies, fertile ground for husband-hunting. Parents of unmarried adult children – and the gossipy older “Aunties” who prowl wedding receptions sizing up prospective matches – hope the dancing singles will catch the marital bug.
Asha and Ravi might, but it seems only by tricking themselves. To ease all this marital pressure, they agree that for the remainder of the current wedding season, since both will be attending multiple ceremonies, they’ll pretend to be dating each other. At least that way they’ll be “off the market” and their parents, the community and the unrelenting “Aunties” will leave them alone.
It’s no surprise that this subterfuge slowly begins to get out of hand, and one of the movie’s delights is seeing the two young people slowly drop the masks they’re wearing. Hands begin to be held. Smooches start to last longer. And they dance together, superbly. Cameras click, onlooking parents smile hopefully.
So, when are these two going to finally face the music? The impending wedding of Asha’s younger sister, Priya (Arianna Afsar), is a trigger. She’s engaged to a white neurosurgeon, Nick (Sean Kleier), who’s rapturously in love with her.
Nick is besotted by Indian culture; he’s adopting Indian dress and manners (fumblingly), speaking Hindi (atrociously), and attempting Indian cooking (disastrously), all out of unbridled love for his fiancée.
Their commitment, though Priya worries about marrying a non-Indian, inspires Asha to take her own risk and consider giving in to Ravi’s entreaties.
Yes, we all want. But it can be hard to admit that we also want to be wanted. When at one point Asha derisively laughs at the tricks women deploy to lure a husband, Suneeta counters, “You laugh, but it’s the hollow cynical laugh of the lonely.”
In sublime alignment with his future mother-in-law, Nick, enthralled by Priya, passionately reminds her and her family of the hallowed maxim: In Indian tradition the souls are linked for seven lifetimes.
The joke Asha cracks about Nick’s deep dive into his bride’s culture contains a sardonic touch of wisdom: “He’s more Indian than we are.” Indeed, he may comically strive to be. But Nick’s heartfelt gawkiness says that devotion can vanquish doubt.
This is the mantra director Tom Dey is guided by, and it’s where he’s been pleasingly steering the movie all along. It helps enormously that he preserves his actors’ feather light touch on their roles. Attitudes are cleanly struck, but no one pushes too hard. Laughter constantly bubbles over. Wait ‘til you see Nick arrive at his wedding.
Modernity can be well-served by tradition. Love makes a way. Parents want their children’s happiness. Lovers can find bliss in one another. That’s what those wedding celebrants are affirming when they applaud the ceremonial kiss, guzzle champagne and hit the dance floor. Good luck to these two, and on to the next big risk!