29 August 2011

Shades of Ray

Well, I watched it for the cast. We got Zach Levi (TV's Chuck, a show Mel and I love,) Bonnie Somerville (from the ill-fated and brief Kitchen Confidential, another favorite show,) Sarah Shahi (hommina hommina ho-boy,) Gerry Bednob (the loud Indian dude from 40 Year Old Virgin,) and Fran Kranz (from another favorite short-lived TV show, Dollhouse.)

The setup is Ray (Levi) is a half-Pakistani, half-white guy in L.A. The movie starts with him proposing to his very white girlfriend, Noel (Somerville.) She "has to think about it." You get the impression her folks aren't happy about her other-than-whitebread boyfriend. She's taking a vacation with them and will be trying to sell them on Ray.

Shortly after she leaves Ray hanging, Ray comes home to find his Dad on his doorstep. His folks are in the midst of a rough patch, as it turns out. Dad claims it's because he married a white woman, and decides to take charge of Ray's love life, introducing him to a friend of a friend of an acquaintance's lovely daughter, Sana (Shahi.)

Sana and Ray hit it off immediately, this being a romantic comedy. Ray is trying to maintain some distance, as he's convinced himself he's in love with Noel. Finally, one night, Sana shows up at Ray's workplace, a cheesy airline-themed bar. She's drunk and horny and pulls Ray into the bathroom. To his credit, he tells her he's engaged before anything can happen. As he's leaving the bathroom, he runs into (of course) Noel, home early to surprise him.

I'll leave off the description there. I've done enough spoiling already. Not that it's really possible to spoil "Shades of Ray." The writing is fine, but the structure is definitely familiar ground.

There is some really good writing around the subject of race, though. Ray is barely comfortable with his mixed ethnicity. His father is hardly comfortable with the fact that he married a white woman, and his son is planning to do the same. Sana and her family (her folks are also a mixed couple) are the only people that seem to be at all comfortable in their own skins.

Overall, it's a reasonably entertaining ninety minutes. Levi is very good. Fran Kranz is fun as the largely unnecessary best friend. Shahi plays her part well, but is so beautiful it's occasionally distracting. There's not really a bum in the cast - I'm pretty sure Noel is meant to be a little unlikeable.

I gave it four stars on Netflix, which might be a little generous.

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