‘When Harry Tries to Marry’ – A Happy Ending

Arranged Marriage or Love?

Do you think it’s still possible to dream big and actually see that dream become a reality? Ask first-time filmmaker Nayan Padrai. His project ‘When Harry Tries to Marry’ – made on hope, persistence and a limited budget has gone on to bag several awards at the recent London Asian Film Festival: Best Crossover Film and the Audience Award for Best Film. Rahul Rai, the young actor who’s never acted before, was named Best New Talent. The film has already shown at the Austin and Mumbai Film Festivals, and its script was a featured project at the Sundance Institute Independent Producers’ Conference.

‘When Harry Tries to Marry’ is a romantic comedy set in New York, about Harry, a young cynic who, after witnessing the debacle of his parents’ love marriage, is determined to go in for the security of an arranged marriage himself. In spite of meticulous plans laid out with the precision of an accountant, he forgets to include the possibility of a gate-crasher – that crazy, impetuous thing called love…

A Look at ‘When Harry Tries to Marry’

So you have Harry engaged to be married to Nita, the perfect arranged marriage candidate with the same background in caste, class and occupation, found by his uncle back home in India. While he’s courting Nita on Skype, he’s stumbling into an attraction – possibly love? – for the warm and fun Theresa, a classmate in college.  Soon you have the conflicted Harry and his friends, including Theresa, headed out for the arranged wedding – and comedy chaos – to India.

We in New York have seen a lot of cross-cultural comedies over the years and somehow arranged marriages always creep into them. This one is different in that it’s Harry himself – not his relatives – who wants an arranged marriage. The good-looking, likeable Harry (played by newcomer Rahul Rai) is appealing, earnest and really sincere in wanting to make this arranged marriage idea succeed.  But can it?

The film has received mixed reviews such as the one in The New York Times, but it worked for me as a light, good-natured comedy, ‘timepass’ as they say in India. It’s funny and sweet, and you somehow connect with the characters. All three actors – Rahul Rai, Freishia Bomanbehram and Stefanie Estes – are newcomers in lead roles but are pretty winning. You find yourself rooting for all three, an odd situation when it’s a love triangle.

Harry’s parents – divorced and leading their own lives – are pretty well etched characters, played with spirit by Tony Mirrcandani  and Zenobia Shroff, who was last seen in Sooni Taraporevala’s ‘Little Zizou’. The actors, the locales and the music are all an engaging east-west blend, reflecting how things are in today’s convoluted world where New York and Mumbai are just a click away.  The movie has some kinks but on the whole, considering its a debut and made on a budget, it’s an entertaining movie which keeps you smiling, and while I don’t want to be a spoiler, I’ll just say it’s a happy ending – both for the hero and the people who made it!

When Harry Tries to Marry: An Interview with Nayan Padrai, First-time Filmmaker

Nayan Padrai is co-writer ( with Ralph Stein), director and co-producer of this little Indy film. For him, it’s been a long journey, going from an idea to an award-winning film. The original script was a featured project at the Sundance Institute Independent Producers’ Conference and was a top-ten finalist of the Creative Screenwriting contest, and has been acknowledged in several other writing contests.

5 Questions for Nayan Padrai:

1. Was making movies something you had always wanted to do?

Yes.  Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a part of the big screen. It’s probably a cliché – but I worshiped at the altar of Amitabh Bachchan as a child and used to dance at school events.  Eventually, I decided to get into drama in high school – it sort of tugged at me, and then I went to film school.  I can’t recall ever wanting to do anything else.

2. How difficult was it making the film?

It’s probably the hardest thing one can set out to do but it’s also a passion, so the journey is like a fun roller-coaster, and when you get off the ride, you want to get back on line and do it again.

3. How was ‘When Harry Tries to Marry’  received in Mumbai?

To my amazement – it was awesome.  We were scheduled against some pretty strong films and I was worried that we’d have an empty house, but we were full and the audience appreciated the film so the festival gave us another screening the next night opposite the closing film of the festival.  That was really cool of them to do, and it really filled our hearts with joy.

4. What are the plans for releasing it in different countries?

We are in talks for sales in various territories through our international representatives at Cinemavault.  We hope to be in Latin America, UK, Australia, South Africa, Middle East, and of course South East Asia.

5. Any amusing anecdote you’d like to share from the making of the movie?

Working with kids is awesome, and there were three scenes where we had toddlers.  In India, we shot a scene where a bunch of toddlers are watching a wedding in progress, and getting the toddlers to just sit and look at the camera was a marathon as I just kept running to the stage to set them – one would sit, the other would crawl, one would cry, the other would laugh, and one fell asleep.  I was more of a wrangler than a director at that moment – so I asked our DP – just keep rolling – don’t cut till we get the shot.  You had to be there.

‘When Harry Tries to Marry’ – How the Actors Got their Roles…

‘When Harry Tries to Marry’ is really the realization of a dream for many people, including first-time producer Sheetal Vyas.  Here she talks about hiring the three stars for the movie, and also the agony of raising funds. She blogs about the travails at Adventures of a First Time Producer

1. How did you select the three actors for this love triangle?

All the three main cast members were selected in a very unusual fashion. Firstly, our hero. Harry. Director Nayan Padrai saw Rahul Rai dancing as part of a dance troupe from Long Island called BollyArts for a ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ party at Pranna, in NYC. Our “Harry” had never ever read or auditioned for anything before. He came, read and conquered our hearts with his innocence and earnestness. And he was only 18, still in high school and preparing to go to NYU to become a dentist. He’s now enrolled in Pace’s performing arts program.

The second unusual casting we did was for Theresa – Stefanie Estes came to read for a small part of a stripper for the bachelor party scene. I saw her sitting outside with a bunch of other girls and just something about the way she carried herself,  I felt she was the one. I went running to the audition room and asked the director to take a look at her. We gave her the lines and she just bowled us over.

Finally, the role of Nita, the other main lead female, was auditioned over Skype. We had gone to India to do the casting, but found no one that we were really passionately happy with. So Nayan went back to NY while I was finishing deals for locations. Then our India line producer recommended Freishia Bomanbehram.  She came in, read, went home with the script, came back that evening, read again, I sent the DVD to Nayan, and he said, put her on Skype with me. Let me do the “Skype” scene of the film with her live. If she can convince me this way, then she can carry the role.

I think the  movie-making business is a lot like Russian roulette. You leave everything to destiny and your karma. That’s what we did with our cast – we took a huge chance with them and we WON!

2. What were the special challenges of this film?

Raising money and distribution are the two toughest parts of this business.  I think raising money for any business is tough, and independent film is a business.  Our plan was very clear from the beginning.  We would showcase what we had instead of doing PowerPoints so we basically turned the movie into a stage play and invited potential investors to see the film enacted at these readings of the script.  That really paid off and got us financing immediately.  It took about 4 months to get the funds in place for production.

3. Any advice for Indian-American filmmakers trying to make an Indy film?

Shooting in India is great as there is a constant supply of chai – and if you want lassi on the sets that’s pretty doable – so try to shoot some parts in India!