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Lesser known “American Desi” brings cultural issues to light

December 14, 2007

By: Reid Conner <rconner@hilite.org>

Director Piyush Dinker Pandya’s first and only film, “American Desi”, tells the story of Krishna Reddy, a second generation Indian immigrant played by Deep Katdare. Being a lesser known, indie-type film, “American Desi” portrays culture identity issues very accurately. It manages to be hilarious and still maintains a seriousness about having pride in your roots. The whole point of the movie is really finding yourself and establishing your own identity.

Kris (as the character calls himself to avoid sounding Indian) is a freshman in college who has just moved away from home and wants to use this chance to leave behind the Indian culture his parents pushed on him. However, he arrives at school and ends up rooming with three other Indian-Americans who actively practice their culture. When he falls for a girl (Purva Bedi) in his engineering class, he must accept and learn about his culture to win her over. He turns to his roommates for help, who teach him what it really means to be Indian.

Kal Penn, who is probably best known for his role in “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” is the comedy in this movie. While the other characters did provide some comedy, I found myself laughing at almost all of the stupid things Penn’s antics. This is definitely a movie where having an understanding of Indian culture will help you get some of the jokes. However, having none didn’t stop me from enjoying this truly funny movie.

The actual production, acting and scenery were decent, but noticeably managed on a very tight budget. For the money available, the movie is still well done. For a low budget indie film, the acting was pretty good. The actors did a good job of really bringing their characters to life. Ronobir Lahiri, who plays the Sikh roommate had to learn all about the cultural aspects of being a Sikh. To make the character more convincing, he even insisted on learning the actual way of tying a turban. It’s the little details like these that I think helped make the characters so real and personal.

With this film, Pandya was obviously trying to undo some stereotypes and establish a basic understanding of unfamiliar cultures for people. He did an amazing job of showing that despite all the differences there may be between groups, when it comes down to it we all actually have a lot in common. There are definitely some good lessons on identity and cultural acceptance that people can take from this movie.

Updated by David · Filed Under Acumen 

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