If there’s a fresh idea in “When Harry Tries To Marry,” I couldn’t find it. So clichéd is the indie rom-com that it took me just 15 minutes to figure out where the story was headed.
Harry (Rahul Rai) is an Indian-American living in New York who firmly believes in arranged marriages. They last while marriages for love — like his parents’ — don’t, he insists.
His overbearing mother agrees, but his playboy father, whose younger girlfriend is pregnant, urges the 22-year-old Harry to have some fun before settling down.
Harry is insistent, and contacts his matchmaking uncle in India, who arranges for his nephew to wed Nita, an attractive woman he’s never met.
Meanwhile, Harry finds himself becoming more and more attracted to an American classmate, the tall and lanky Theresa. She’s portrayed by Stefanie Estes in a role that Greta Gerwig might have taken before she went Hollywood.
The story plays out exactly as you’d expect, with a showdown at Harry and Nita’s lavish wedding in India.
Directed and co-written by Nayan Padrai, “When Harry Tries To Marry” is no more than a TV sitcom minus the laugh track.
On the plus side, the pictures are pretty.