SHADES OF RAY (Jaffar Mahmood, 2008)

Writing, Acts I & II: 4/10
Writing, Act III: 7/10
Overall Originality: 8/10
Quirkiness of Supporting Characters: 9/10
Minutes Before Men In The Audience Realize With Horror That They're Watching And Enjoying a Romantic Comedy: 75/90

The Bottom Line: Though the screenplay is a bit uneven at first, Shades of Ray gradually evolves into a refreshingly non-formulaic rom-com.

Let's clear the air straightaway. In this review, I'm going to be talking like someone who is familiar with romantic comedies. Yes, I am an adult male. Yes, I identify as heterosexual. And yes, I have seen my fair share of romantic comedies. I date. It happens, you know?

That said, let's talk about this movie. Ray (Zachary Levi, who looks strikingly like an Israeli version of John Krasinski) is an aspiring actor with a white mother and a Pakistani father (Brian Geoge, a.k.a. Babu from Seinfeld...nice to see he's still getting work). His father has always cautioned him against marrying any woman who is not Pakistani. If you've been following along, you'll realize how well Ray's father followed his own advice. Nevertheless, Ray has just proposed to his white girlfriend, who can't say yes until she's talked it over with her presumably xenophobic parents. While Ray waits for an answer, though, his parents' marriage starts to dissolve. And as part of a deal he strikes to get his father to try and reconcile with his mother, Ray agrees to go on just one date with a Pakistani woman of his father's choosing. Without spoiling too much plot, I can say that they kind of hit it off, and things get a bit complicated for Ray.  Then again, things have always been a bit complicated for Ray. As a self-described "mutt," Ray has never really been sure what to make of his ethnic identity, and this tension underlies all the other conflicts of the film.

Before I start my nitpicking, let me say that I genuinely enjoyed this movie. When it starts, though, Shades of Ray doesn't seem completely certain what kind of comedy it wants to be. Sometimes it tries to be a subtle, family-driven romantic comedy with psychologically realistic characters and other times it tries to be a zany, slapstick comedy with over-the-top characters. Both are equally legitimate forms of comedy. But each is watched and identified with differently, and when a single movie tries to do both, it can be hard for an audience to get its bearings. Don't get me wrong, both the zany bits and the subtler jokes are quite funny in and of themselves. But given how the film ultimately turns out, the zanier parts feel just a little out of place.

In fact, I almost felt as if half of the characters inhabited a psychologically realistic movie universe, the other half inhabited a screwball universe, and Ray was caught in the middle. So, we can't rule out that this was done deliberately to emphasize the theme of Ray's uncertainty as to where he fits into the world. And if this is the case, it was a bold choice and I commend writer-director Mahmood for trying it. But I found it a bit disorienting. I also found some of the writing a bit obvious. By this I mean that some things which were said explicitly I would have found more interesting had they been gradually revealed or remained subtextual. But that's a matter of preference I suppose.

All that said, once Shades of Ray hit its stride somewhere around the third act, I was completely invested in Ray's story. Or, at least, I was far too invested to notice any more nitpicky things I didn't like about the screenplay. There are many things that separate the good romantic comedies from the massive pile of schlock that gets churned out on a regular basis, and this movies hits almost all of them. But one of those things that Shades of Ray does particularly well is to establish an interesting non-romantic conflict and weave it together with the romantic conflict. I'm sure plenty of movies have been made about people of South Asian descent struggling with their ethnic identity. But I've never seen a movie where that underlies the romance plot, and for that reason this movie felt a bit more fresh than similar ones I've seen.

It also eschews one of my least favorite conventions of the genre. Usually, in a romantic comedy, when a character needs to choose between two romantic partners, one is either a praying mantis-like gorgon, or an intolerable d-bag, and you wonder how our protagonist ended up with this miserable human being in the first place. But Mahmood actually takes the time to create two women who seem like decent enough people that Ray's decision is actually a decision.

The point is, if you decide you want to see a romantic comedy for some reason (I'm not here to judge) and want to see one that you won't feel like you've seen a thousand times before, this one is pretty good.