Naman Gupta | Coming Out with the Help of a Time Machine / 2021

worth repeating

by Douglas Messerli

 

Naman Gupta and Jani Parekh (screenplay), Naman Gupta (director) Coming Out with the Help of a Time Machine / 2021 [20 minutes]

 

Other than the clumsy and far too literal title, this film by US director Naman Gupta employs the use of the equally clumsy and obvious device, the titular “time machine” to enhance what is otherwise a rather predictable “coming out” movie. The boy Sid’s (Karan Soni) first attempts in his diner meetup with his Indian conservative parents, Poonam and Rakesh Seith (Snageeta Agrawal and Raghuram Shetty), to tell them who he really is are met up with a crying baby and a coffee-spilling waitress (Trella Mebieth) along with the reactions of his rather fierce mother. And in another version of the meetup his mother immediately calls up Dr. Patel to get her son straightened out. We might wish we had a reset button, as does Sid, to start the conversations over again.

     But when he finally gets across his message, that he is gay, and begins a true conversation and the accusations quiet down, Sid has a no less painful time than many a boy his age do. In tears, Sid admits he knows how hard his parents have worked for his future, but it is nearly impossible to convince them that just because he is gay that he will no longer have any future—that despite the familial ostracizations and parental embarrassments his career can continue and their son succeed in the world. For them it is immediate catastrophe with no way out, representing a kind of hysteria which Sid’s mother, in particular, is fond of displaying when things go against her liking.

     Sid attempts to explain, like all young men in his situation, that it is not a willing choice, a fad he is going through, but an emotional response with which he was born and began realizing at an early age. And his expression of his long pain in attempting to change things and keeping the truth inside finally convinces his father to support and even defend him.

      But his mother is a force of homophobic denial that he her husband can’t qual. She leaves the two of them stranded and unsettled, only to finally return when she recalls how she has all her life attempted to allay and protect her son from harm and fear. So, it appears the peace has been temporary made, his parents love having won over their fears and ignorance.

      That is until his father, curious about the watch his son has left on the table, is about to push the red reset button once again, meaning than everything will have to happen all over again, this time with perhaps a different ending.

      But, of course, that is what happens in real life. The next day parents wake up with new fears, different reactions, other solutions. Coming out is never a single incident, but an ongoing process that families must undergo sometimes for long periods of time or even the rest of the lifetimes. Fortunately, however, they need not each time to start all over again with the same so-difficult-to-say first words…”Mom, dad, I’m gay.”

      If I had a time machine, I’d set it for the day when those words were perceived as a joyful recognition. But in the meantime, throwing in a little sci-fi to jazz up those endlessly repeated words isn’t really worth it.

 

Los Angeles, July 15, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).