A.P. Bio: Comic Classroom Capers

I spent the better part of this year rewatching Community on Netflix to self-soothe. That was six seasons of heaven that ended too soon, but thankfully the third season of A.P. Bio came along to give me more giggles. 

I binged the first two seasons of A.P. Bio last year when I was going through a stressful time and it brought me much joy. Then it got cancelled, but after much uproar, NBC announced it would be bringing the show back via its new streaming platform, Peacock. When all eight episodes dropped, you can bet I binged that sucker all the way through.

The show tells the story of Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton), an obnoxious curmudgeon who moves back to his hometown after losing his job as a Harvard philosophy professor. To make ends meet, he gets a job as a Biology teacher at the local high school (no, he does not know any Biology, as his honor students discover much to their chagrin) because Principal Durbin (Patton Oswalt, who I have followed for years on Twitter and therefore is the only reason I found out about this show), is a bit obsessed with him and thinks he can do no wrong. What follows is a classic sitcom where Jack and his students get into multiple scrapes as he schemes various plots to better his circumstances, write a book, and become a lofty academic once more, instead of a lowly teacher in Toledo.

The joy of this show comes from its supporting cast. Like all great comedies, you have to give the cast room to breathe and eventually things start humming along like a well-oiled machine. The students have various quirks and it’s fun to see who emerges as Jack’s favorite or his mortal enemy. His fellow teachers, in particular the trio of Stef, Mary, and Michelle (Lyric Lewis, Mary Sohn, Jean Villepique), are a trio of wackadoos in the best possible way and cause nonstop shenanigans. And the marvelous Paula Pell also stars as Helen Demarcus, the administrative assistant who keeps this whole school going whilst being simultaneously the most deranged and most kindhearted woman on the planet. 

Created by Mike O’Brien, A.P. Bio is also a joke factory, and every script is a well-crafted symphony of hilarity. The volley of one-liners can make your head spin, while the intricacies of plot are always thrilling and complexly illustrated on the blackboard for your pleasure in almost every episode. This show looks great, sounds great, has great writing, and stars great actors. Most importantly, it will make you laugh nonstop, and that is a relief we all need in 2020. So seek it out and wallow in that comedy goodness for three glorious seasons. The only thing you’ll regret is that you’ll finish your binge far too quickly. 

Netflix Movie Roundup: The Social Dilemma; Love, Guaranteed; Enola Holmes

If you’ve been missing your movie theater, never fear, Netflix has you covered with every possible genre. Whether you’re seeking a mystery adventure, a lighthearted romantic comedy, or an apocalyptic documentary drama, there’s something for everyone this month!

The Social Dilemma: Ironically, everyone on social media has been buzzing about this movie. Which is a documentary about the evils of social media. Go figure. Featuring interviews with people who worked at various prominent tech companies, they all share the same fear: technology has been designed solely with revenue in mind, and as such, has led to our current divided world of fake news and disinformation. We aren’t the users of social media - we are the product, with our data being sold to advertisers to generate trillions of dollars. The movie outlines the numerous tips and tricks companies use to hook you in: one that really struck me was the development of photo tagging, which Facebook uses to compel you to log back onto Facebook and get sucked in. That’s why you only get an email notification that a friend tagged you in a photo, but the email doesn’t include the photo: you absolutely have to click the link and go to Facebook to see it. Us humans are such suckers. In parallel with the documentary interviews, there’s a fictional storyline depicting a teenage boy (Skyler Gisondo) from a typical suburban family and how social media pervades his daily life. Things escalate from the innocuous to the insane pretty quickly but it is all perfectly plausible.

The Social Dilemma is a disturbing and wise movie about how much harm social media has caused in our society, delving into such dark topics as escalating teen self-harm and suicide rates and the spread of misinformation during the pandemic. Or, the potential for civil war, which is the bleak answer the former President of Pinterest provides when asked what he is most worried about as a result of the divisiveness caused by social media. That was his answer for what worries him in the short term. The filmmakers didn’t event bother to ask about the long term. While the movie focuses a lot on young people and their unprecedented exposure to all this harmful content, I would make a plea for older folk to watch it too. Lord knows my grandmother and parents could benefit from understanding that the endless Whatsapp texts they read everyday need to be carefully researched and evaluated and not simply forwarded on as though they were gospel truth. So watch this movie and then pass it on to all the teens and conspiracy theory-loving seniors in your life. Maybe it is not too late to get them to make an informed vote in the upcoming election. 

Love, Guaranteed: Don’t want doom and gloom? Don’t worry. Rachel Leigh Cook produces and stars in this movie as Susan Whitaker, a lawyer who has taken on a new client, Nick Evans (Damon Wayans Jr.) who wants to sue a dating app because he hasn’t yet found love. The app’s fine print guarantees love if you go on a thousand dates so he has been on a grueling quest to date a thousand women so he can file a civil suit against this app and get a settlement. Is it a hokey premise? Yes. Is it thoroughly delightful? YES.

Cook and Wayans are charming actors and have loads of chemistry, which is all you want from a slight romcom. Given what a huge fan I was of She’s All That as a kid, it was a joy to see Rachel Leigh Cook back on my screen, playing a badass lawyer who has been so focused on her work that her love life has passed her by. All the tropes about the awfulness of online dating are spot on, and while this movie is hardly going to win any awards for its screenplay, it is the low-key, frothy, fun film that you crave on a weekend after another soul-crushing week of 2020. So, veg out on the couch and pull up this movie for some much-needed cozy escapism. You’ve earned it.

Enola Holmes: Do you prefer your escapism to come with more mystery and feminist adventure? Then let Millie Bobby Brown take you into the world of Enola Holmes, the hitherto unknown teenage sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. When her mother (played by the fabulous Helena Bonham Carter) disappears, Enola has to deal with the overbearing Mycroft (Sam Claflin), who thinks she is a nuisance who has to be sent off to boarding school, and the disinterested Sherlock (Henry Cavill), who does find her very smart and capable, but cannot be bothered to deal with her care and upkeep in the absence of their mother. So, our enterprising heroine decides to escape to London and search for her mother herself. But on the way she encounters a fellow escapee, and much mayhem ensues.

Based on the series of YA novels by Nancy Springer, this is a cute movie, and Brown is engaging and winning throughout. Like most Sherlock-based films, the emphasis is more on action scenes than compelling mysteries, which is why I will always prefer the BBC Sherlock that leans more towards the cerebral, but this is still a well-done movie with a surprisingly stacked cast. Cavill is an odd choice as Sherlock since he looks so muscular that he might pop out of his clothes at any minute, but thankfully he is not the focus of the film, which has a much more feminist bent. There’s a lot of oddly relevant emphasis on the important of voting reform and how every vote matters, so even though this is set in Victorian England, it still resonates in 2020. So watch this film to enjoy some thrills and a fun retelling of classic literature. And then remember to register to vote and come up with your voting plan. Because, no matter how much pop culture we consume this year to get away from reality, we keep having to face it. 

Away: Let's Escape to Mars

Netflix is back to their old tricks and had me hunkered down on my couch this weekend, bingeing my way through their latest drama, Away. Starring Hilary Swank, and set partly in space, this show is the kind of expensive, cinematic thrill we've come to expect from a Netflix original. Is it actually prestige television? Not quite. But it is a compelling drama that sucks you in and reminds you of the comfortable family network dramas we used to watch before the advent of streaming meant that our dramas had to be more edgy and gratuitous.

The show follows the Atlas mission led by American astronaut, Emma Green (Hilary Swank), which will be the first (wo)manned mission to Mars. She is leading a crew that looks like the UN Security Council (except France has been replaced by India, because Netflix needs those billion brown viewers y'all!): there's the grumpy, vodka-swilling, Russian cosmonaut Misha Popov (Mark Ivanir); the taciturn Chinese taikonaut Lu Wang (Vivan Wu); India's Ram Arya (Ray Panthanki), Emma's second-in-command, and the medical officer (let's face it, if you're an Indian man in science, you're a doctor); and from the UK, Kwesi Weisberg-Abban (Ato Essandoh), who is the crew's botanist and the only one who didn't start out as a trained astronaut. He is originally from Ghana, but was adopted by Jewish parents in the UK so is a man of deep faith and might be the most uniquely non-stereotypical character in all of television. And yes, while the rest of the characters seem like your typical stereotypes of the Chinese, Russian, and Indians, don't worry. Things only start out that way, but as we flesh out these characters and get flashbacks to learn more about them, we quickly piece together much more complicated and nuanced backstories. Their cultures do inform their lives, of course, but the writers eventually give them streaks of individuality that make them much more human.

That's what's happening in space. But back in Houston, we have an almost completely different show playing out with Emma's family. Her husband, Matt (Josh Charles) has some major health issues right when she sets off for Mars, and her teenage daughter Alexis (Talitha Bateman) is having to go through a LOT, what with one parent being in the hospital while the other one is literally in space. The show does a wonderful job of exploring their family dynamic as well as the choices Emma and her husband have had to make along the way so she can pursue her dreams and "have it all." While the show was created by Andrew Hinderaker, Jason Katims is an executive producer (and wrote one of the episodes) and you can see his influence when Away starts to resemble something like Friday Night Lights or Parenthood. Yes, this is a very high-concept show with a great deal of space drama and technical mumbo-jumbo about how to fix solar panels and fix the water pump, and it can get very tense and exciting when you're watching a space walk and marveling at the zero-gravity special effects. But at its core, this is a show about ordinary human beings thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Every actor on this show is wonderful, so by the end, you're just rooting for everybody. A lot of the human drama can be very cliched, and there were "revelations" in Episode 9 that I predicted right when I watched Episode 1, but that's what's so comforting about this show. Humans are predictable, even in space. But some of the plot points were also a genuine surprise, because guess what. Humans sometimes seem predictable and then throw you a massive curveball. 

Away is extraordinarily well-paced and I was never bored for a second. Every episode has the exact right mix of space and scientific logic and then messy human drama. It does clever things in terms of imagining how the astronauts would communicate back to their families on Earth, and delves into the toll this journey takes on them after months go by and they increasingly have to rely on each other instead of the people they left behind. It provides a fascinating psychological study and while people get into major fights and face life-or-death decisions constantly, this is also a remarkably hopeful and optimistic show. The first episode has some odd moments where it's trying to be more edgy and "cable"-esque, but all of that feels very forced. Eventually it accepts what it is. This show isn't interested in trafficking in cynicism; instead, it promotes a story of global and individual cooperation, about how people can get past their differences and successfully pull together for the greater good. At a time when society feels more fractured than ever, that's the kind of message my weary soul needed. If your soul is thirsting for that too, settle down on your couch with Away. There's a whole plotline about dehydration, but I promise, your thirst will be quenched.

September Movie Roundup: Bill & Ted, The Secret Garden, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Another weekend is upon us and I have another set of mini movie reviews if you need suggestions for how to while away the time. Though this is a decidedly esoteric trio of films.

Bill & Ted Face the Music: I had never watched any of the Bill & Ted movies, so in preparation for this sequel, twenty years in the making, I rewatched Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Loved the first, thought the second was odd, and as a result, Face the Music, which is a mix of the two, is excellent fan service. For those not in the know, the movies follow William "Bill" S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and "Ted" Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves), two teenagers who have a band called Wyld Stallyns. They are flunking their history class, but then receive a visit from Rufus (George Carlin), a time traveler from 2688, who tells them to get into his time traveling phone booth and go back into history to talk to various historical figures to flesh out their final history report. Rufus is invested in their future because he hails from a Utopian society that is built around the myth of Bill & Ted as the Two Great Ones, who created a song that would unite the world. 

Yeah, it's the world's most absurd premise. In Bogus Journey, things get weirder with a whole trip to the afterlife, fighting with evil robots, and playing Twister with Death. And in Face the Music, our heroes are now middle-aged fathers who still haven't created that song that will save the world and the space-time continuum is getting increasingly warped. So what follows are extreme shenanigans that pull on themes from the prior two films with the fun twist of now including their teenage daughters in the mix. My favorite part of these movies is the dialogue - Bill & Ted have a very specific way of speaking that is an intriguing mix of California surfer dude and Shakespeare. And it's such a delight to see Winter and Reeves reprise these roles twenty years later and still have that enduring friendship. The time travel logistics are also surprisingly well-thought-out and it's all a lot of fun as long as you don't think about it too hard. It's 2020, and Bill & Ted are back. What more do you want dude?

The Secret Garden: We had to read The Secret Garden in school and I loved it. I also have fond memories of watching the 1987 Hallmark movie adaptation, where we all squealed in horror at the tacked-on epilogue where the grown-up cousins decide to get married. But now, we have our very own 2020 adaptation of this classic that stays true to the book and is a perfectly pleasant distraction for an afternoon. 

Set in 1947, the story follows Mary (Dixie Egerickx), a young orphan who is shipped back to England to stay with her uncle when her parents die in British India. She is a difficult child and initially does not endear herself to the servants in the house. Her uncle, Lord Craven (played by Colin Firth, who delightfully had a cameo as the adult Colin in the 1987 movie!) is a grieving widower and just tells Mary to behave herself else he'll ship her off to boarding school. Being an inquisitive child, she roams around the house and finds her cousin Colin (Edan Hayhurst), a bedridden, petulant boy who has been coddled all his life but also told that he is too sick to do much. He seems like a lost cause, so instead Mary befriends one of the maid's brothers, Dickon (Amir Wilson) and the two of them have adventures roaming around the estate, and playing in the eponymous garden, a mysterious but beautiful place that has been locked up and taken over by Mother Nature. What follows is a sweet tale of friendship and family mysteries, and re-introducing whimsy into the lives of adults and children who have been taking everything far too seriously.

Egerickx is a wonderful actress who seems poised to be yet another British child actor who goes on to do great things. And the movie's special effects and production design are lush and wondrous, particularly where the garden is concerned. It's a lovely movie if you want to re-kindle your childhood memories of the book, or experience the story for the first time. Is it the best movie of the year? No. But is it perfectly serviceable and entertaining? Yes.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things: I just watched this movie and I have no idea what happened in the past two hours. This film is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in a riddle. It begins with a couple (Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons) driving in a snowstorm to visit his parents (David Thewlis and Toni Collette) for dinner. They get to his parents' house, have dinner, and drive back in the snow. But oh my GOD. So much stuff happens! And yet, I have no idea what happens! The entire thing is like watching a play and then a nightmare. It's classified as a psychological thriller and the soundtrack is always creeping up your spine and giving you goosebumps. The actors are absolutely extraordinary - I have always loved Jesse Plemons and he doesn't disappoint, but Jessie Buckley is a revelation and is bound to be the next big Irish import (seriously, it is astonishing that she is Irish, it's like we don't need any American actresses any more). This is the acting opportunity of a lifetime and the two of them get to deliver performances that showcase their complete range. But again, what is this movie about? I. Do. Not. Know.

Watch this movie so we can then attempt to discuss and dissect it together. I, for one, am thrilled I got through it because now I will go down the rabbit hole of reading every article about it and listening to every podcast about it, and have smarter people explain to me what the hell I just watched. There were bits I enjoyed, and the dialogue was rather delightful in its pedantry and wide-ranging references to literature, science, and movies, all things I love. But man oh man, as bonkers as I thought it was at the beginning, nothing could have prepared me for how bonkers it got by the end. This is an absolute fever dream of a movie. Do I recommend it? No. Do I still desperately want you to watch it so you can explain it to me? Yes.

P-Valley and I May Destroy You: A Binge Bonanza

I had the last two weeks off so I put them to good use by bingeing my heart out on two shows that received a great deal of critical acclaim but hadn't made their way to my watchlist yet. I'm grateful I didn't have to watch these shows week to week and could instead mainline the majority of episodes and then impatiently wait for the finales to air. And now, all episodes are available to you for your viewing pleasure: lucky you!

I May Destroy You: Written by and starring the brilliant Michaela Coel, this show follows Arabella (Coel), a British-Ghanaian woman in London who got famous on Twitter and is now a novelist and Millenial icon. She is furiously trying to finish a draft of her new novel but decided to meet up with some friends in a bar for a break. The next morning, Arabella wakes up in her flat, and can't remember anything from the night before. She assumes it was just a really wild night. However, she has a cut on her forehead and feels awful, and as the day progresses, it's clear that something's not quite right. That's when she starts having flashbacks to the night before. And has the dawning realization that at some point in the evening, her drink was spiked and she was raped. 

This is a dark show, but Coel somehow manages this insane tone throughout where there is actual comedy as Arabella tries to process her trauma and solve the mystery of what happened that night. By her side are her best friends Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Esiedu), and as the series progresses we also get to see the sexual traumas those two have gone through in the past or present. Kwame is gay, so there's a whole other mess of sexual politics and "discreet" hookups he is trying to manage, and there's an interesting juxtaposition later on in the show between how the police treat Kwame versus how they treat Arabella. 

The most fascinating aspect of I May Destroy You is that Coel doesn't especially try to make any character "likable." Arabella can sometimes be her own worst enemy, and there are moments when she lashes out against her friends, or potentially exploits her experience in selfish and strange ways. This is also a show about consent - we all know rape is wrong, but this show isn't interested in black and white; it wants to explore all the grey areas in between and the many ways in which a consensual sexual encounter can quickly turn into a nightmare scenario. It sparks uncomfortable trains of thought, and is deliciously smart and philosophical. And the series finale was a thing of beauty, an epic conclusion that felt apt but open to interpretation and offered up a satisfying ending while still ensuring nothing was tidy. 

This is the perfect show for the #MeToo era and given the mostly Black cast, it is also a perfect #BlackLivesMatter watch (I would laugh when Stephen Wight would occasionally pop in as Arabella's white roommate who really has nothing to do in this show except be the supportive friend, a neat twist on the supportive Black friend trope). Do you want to know what's it like to be a Black woman in London, the child of Ghanaian immigrants, trying to make a life for yourself on social media whilst dealing with creepy men who think they have the right to your body? Well then watch this show and prepare to be horrified and saddened, but bizarrely compelled and entertained at the same time. Michaela Coel is a fantastic actress (her face, alone, is an expressive masterpiece), but the true star of this show is the writing and she must be heralded as an absolute master for her ability to take one of the world's most difficult subjects and somehow make it both funny and human. I still can't understand how she did it, but I'm glad I got to see it.

P-Valley: Created by Katori Hall, this show is based on her play, Pussy Valley. And it is easy to tell that this show is the work of a playwright the minute you start listening to the dialogue. The story of the Pynk, a strip club in the fictional city of Chucalissa, Mississippi, this show is an absolute feast for the senses but my personal highlight is to let the dialogue wash over me and delight in the absolutely stunning writing. It wouldn't be hyperbolic to say that it often feels Shakespearean - I may not always understand what the characters are saying as there can be a lot of Southern Black slang being flung about, but much like watching Shakespeare, you don't need to understand the words to understand the sentiment. That comes pouring through simply from the cadence of the line delivery and the impeccable work of the actors who make up the motley crew at the Pynk.

This show scratches the itch left by Hustlers, a movie that left me wanting to see more strippers being badasses. Is this show incredibly graphic and not for the faint of heart? Sure. But I can honestly say the first word that comes to mind when watching these women dance isn't "erotic;" it's "athletic." My heart was in my mouth every time a woman would slide down a pole head-first, convinced that I was about to witness a traumatic brain injury. These ladies are absolute gymnastic legends, and I found myself cheering and wishing I had a couple of dollar bills to throw at my screen whenever the drama slowed down and we were treated to an expertly-choreographed dance scene where you got to revel in these women and their expertise. 

However, off the stage, there is plenty of drama to go around. There is an elaborate cast of characters, with the new girl, Autumn (Elarica Johnson), who harbors a dangerous secret, the reigning queen, Mercedes (Brandee Evans), who is planning her retirement, and the club's manager, Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan), who is simply the most wondrous character I have gotten to see on TV in a while (Annan's line delivery would certainly make Olivier weep), and serves as a constant reminder to me to be more mindful of using the right pronouns. Apart from being a colorful and visual feast, the show also features the most incredible soundtrack. J. Alphonse Nicholson plays a rapper called Lil Murda, and the first time I watched the character of Keyshawn (Shannon Thornton) dance to his song "Fallin'," I couldn't get that song out of my head for days. And the theme song, "Down in the Valley" by Jucee Froot is a fun and eerie song that always immediately sets the tone at the beginning of every episode.

Every character in this show is brimming with complexity and doesn't fit any of your preconceived notions. As the show progressed, I found myself on the edge of my seat after every episode, desperate to know what would happen next. Would the Pynk be screwed over by corporate interests? Why does Autumn know so much about money laundering? Is Mercedes going to start her gym? Will Keyshawn ever escape her abusive partner? What amazing outfit will Uncle Clifford be wearing next? The show is compelling and witty and a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. Thankfully it has been picked up for another season, and I cannot wait to see where they go from here. 

Like I May Destroy You, P-Valley also features a mostly Black cast and it is such a welcome change to see more diverse viewpoints represented on screen because Black creatives are being given control behind the cameras. This is the kind of television we get when we finally allow Black women to tell stories, and while it took way too long to get here, we certainly can't stop now. More please.

A Suitable Girl and Indian Matchmaking: Marriages Are Not Made in Heaven

SPOILER ALERT: I will be giving away a lot of plot points to both Indian Matchmaking and A Suitable Girl in this post. Consider yourself warned. 

Like most of the world, I bingewatched Indian Matchmaking in July and was alternately tickled and horrified. Mostly tickled by the Indian-Americans who were just desperate and looking for love, and then horrified by the regressive Indians who seemed to think that getting a wife was the equivalent of hiring a maid that you don't have to pay. So you know, slave labor. At the center of it all, of course, was the infamous matchmaker, Sima Taparia, aka Sima auntie, aka Sima from Mumbai. 

Sima got a lot of flack for her approach, but frankly, she was only reflecting the truth about how Indians treat marriage: as an economic necessity, rather than an emotional one. I found myself terrifically angry with the Indian men on the show (throughout this post, if I say "Indian," I mean those who are actually living in India, while the rest are "Indian-American") who were the typical rich boys who've had every whim catered to by their indulgent mothers and are now looking for more of the same from their potential bride. They looked bewildered when asked "what do you think women want?" because for the first time, they had to grapple with the fact that maybe women have thoughts and feelings too. It was a given that their wives wouldn't work after marriage and would have to "adjust" to living in the family home and following the dictates set out by their mother. When they went on dates with potential matches, the awkwardness was palpable as these men clearly had no idea how to even hold a conversation. It was all a far cry from the Indian-Americans availing themselves of Sima's services who actually had some semblance of personality and some idea of what kind of person they wanted to be with, as opposed to just saying "I need someone who can cook and do whatever my mother tells her to." 

White people found this all fascinating, along with the woke backlashes about all the rampant colorism where people only wanted a partner who was "fair." And one of the major criticisms of the show is that it only focused on upper class families, where the men and women actually have choices. After all, no one on this show was ultimately forced into a marriage against their will; Sima auntie's services were more like using a personalized dating app. That's certainly how the Indian Americans used her, with people ultimately loving how Aparna from Texas knew what she wanted and wasn't going to settle. The Indian heroine of this show was Ankita, the woman from Delhi who decided she wasn't enjoying this process and was going to focus on herself and her career instead. Her parents indulgently said, oh yes, she's so modern for her time, she can do whatever she likes. And that's what every liberal Indian will tell you about the use of matchmakers and the wedding industrial complex: no one is being forced into anything, it really is just like dating, it's all very modern and refined now. To which I say, fuck that. Every Indian is complicit in the way that women are raised in their society to think that their value comes from getting married. Indian Matchmaking's glossy production and comic reality show editing may not make that wholly apparent, but one of its producers, Smriti Mundhra, co-directed with Sarita Khurana the excellent 2017 documentary, A Suitable Girl. That movie, which is where Smriti first met Sima, provides much more insight and nuance into this society that allows matchmaking services, matrimonial websites, and constant pressure on women to flourish until all they ever have is the illusion of choice.

A Suitable Girl followed three women, Dipti, Amrita, and Ritu, over four years in their quest to get married. I watched this movie after hearing about the Sima auntie connection and imagine my absolute delight when I discovered that Sima isn't featured because she is the matchmaker for one of these women; she's Ritu's MOTHER. If you thought this lady was rough on her female clients, you can't even imagine what she's like with her own flesh and blood. While Sima thought her daughter should just get married after getting her Bachelor's degree, Ritu insisted on getting a Master's and getting a job as a financial services consultant. She is obviously intelligent and loves her work, but her mother is buckling under the pressure from her friends, parents, and in-laws. Everyone is making snide comments about how Sima works to find matches for strangers but doesn't seem to care about finding a husband for her own daughter. Meanwhile Ritu is completely ambivalent and shuts down every time her parents bring up the topic of marriage. When she finally does get hitched, it's to a man who, in her presence, says to the filmmakers, "Yeah, if it wasn't her, it would have to be someone else, our society doesn't give us any option except to marry. I hope I get reborn as a European so I can wait till I'm in my 40s, or don't even have to get married at all!" Ultimately, the two of them probably have a very strong marriage because the foundation of it appears to be, Hey, you are getting pressured into marrying a stranger too? Cool, guess we can be ambivalent and resigned about this whole process together! And that, dear reader, is all that Indians expect marriage to be. If you eventually develop slightly more positive feelings beyond ambivalence, that's the icing on the cake that they call "love".

Next, we have Amrita, a classic Delhi girl, who likes to party and shop, but also has her own career, the first working woman in her family. We meet her two months before her wedding to Keshav, who has told her that she can continue to work in his family business once they get married. We get a short history of their relationship from Keshav who says that he thought she was really pretty when they were in school together, but then they moved to different areas of the country. However, he would fly up to Delhi to visit Amrita and eventually they decided they wanted to get married. So theirs is a love marriage, albeit with full parental consent, natch. As we follow Amrita into her married years, we see the gradual subsummation of her identity and her independence. Her parents are so proud of how she has "adjusted" to her in-laws demands. Meanwhile, her dreams of working, or even just wearing some jeans around the house, are gone forever. And let's not forget, the topic of marriage isn't the only time a woman loses her choices. When chatting with a girlfriend, Amrita very matter-of-factly declares that oh, of course she has to have a kid after her third anniversary, she would be "declared dead" otherwise. In India, there's no need for love, but first comes marriage, and then comes baby in the baby carriage.

The final woman, Dipti, was my favorite of the three. She is what Sima would call a "difficult" match. Her family is probably poorer than the other two, and she is not "fair" and she is not "slim." This is a woman who could never afford Sima's matchmaking services, and when we meet her, she is a 29-year-old teacher who has been looking for a groom for a while. We see some potential matches she meets through matrimonial ads or a "Swayamwar" which is basically a weird Indian version of speed-dating along with your parents where the men are introduced in terms of their age, caste, and monthly income. Again, white people, you think this is bizarre, but Indians think this is perfectly normal. Because again, marriage in India is about economics. Women aren't expected to support themselves. So parents are looking to offload their daughter into a good family with enough money to support her. They are also willing to pay a dowry to get her married off, because an unmarried daughter is a shameful thing (plus, what about the grandbabies?!) Dipti's journey particularly showcases the pressure women can be under, when she falls into a period of depression after she has been ghosted by her umpteenth prospect. During her 30th birthday, every neighbor and relative says that their wish for Dipti is that she gets married soon (this includes little boys, not just elderly aunties, because this wish for all women to be married is taught to children early and continues on forever). At no point does anyone seem to care that Dipti has a job and could pursue a career. No one seems concerned that she doesn't have many friends (instead that's touted as a plus when a suitor visits, when her parents say, she only goes to work and then comes home, no wild party girl for you to worry about here!), because what's the point of having friends when all you need is a husband? There is so much people could do to help her when she's feeling down, but instead, everyone is fixated on the fact that the only possible solution to her malaise is marriage. And frankly, that is what ends up happening. She (of course) does eventually get married, but I have higher hopes for her marriage than anyone else's because all the rejections along the way seem to have at least given her a stronger sense of what she deserves from a husband. But still, there was no need for that woman to endure so much scrutiny and the constant sense of failure through the process.

If you enjoyed Indian Matchmaking but want actual social context, A Suitable Girl is a wonderful documentary that will 100% rip your emotional guts out and make you much more sympathetic to the Indian women in your life. If you have no desire to watch Indian Matchmaking glamorize the Indian marriage mart and want to go straight to the warts and all, then watch A Suitable Girl immediately. Basically, if all else fails, watch A Suitable Girl. It captures the essence of everything I find so troubling when I have to have the periodic conversations with my parents about whether they should "find me a boy" or that "it's time for me to settle down" or the fights with my grandmother about how I need to get married "because all my friends will get married and forget about me." In the modern Indian world, women still aren't independent entities capable of standing on their own two feet, and a husband is the only cure. And to be fair, this applies to the men too - they are also taught that marriage is their only destiny and are never taught to take care of themselves in any fashion, so they definitely need that bride to help iron their shirts and cook because they would otherwise legitimately perish. But, since they are also expected to work and have careers, they always have the eventual fallback option of hiring a maid and living the bachelor lifestyle. Women, however, may only have careers to pass the time before they find a groom. As such, there's a significant education/ambition gap, where women might not even pursue a degree or seek a promotion, thereby limiting their options from the get-go. As much as people proclaim to be liberal, those gender roles assigned by society from birth are deeply rooted in their psyches and modern India is still a world where people think marriage is the be all and end all of your existence. The struggle is real y'all, and A Suitable Girl is some indication as to why.