Il ragazzo giusto

There is a lot riding on A Suitable Boy. Really enjoyed episode 1 aired last night. Colourful, dialogue simple, beautiful on the eye, against a political background of India-Pakistan partition. I love Art and Slow pace series. Thanks to Vikram Seth and Mira Nair can't wait to watch more episodes

When I started to read Vikram Seth's monster novel, 'A Suitable Boy', I found it hard going: had Seth really written 1400 pages about the attempts of a young woman to find a husband? But the story inside this framing ultimately expanded into an astonishingly broad, subtle, superbly written and cunningly plotted epic. This television adaptation can't quite bring the Seth's full vision to life, and feels much more like I first feared the book would be: an essentially simple story about finding the right partner. We do still see a lot of India; but at times it feels that it's merely providing background colour, while the characters are simplified and presented straight up as the people you gradually come to know over the book's many chapters. It's always hard judging a new version of something you already love fairly, but I couldn't engage with this series. Read the original instead: it's a literary masterpiece.

Was looking forward to this drama, well no more. Again a type of hype job that has not lived up to expectations. The acting is poor overall, probably due to lack of experience but so wooden that birds could have nested on them. It have an old feeling about, been there, done that like 30 years ago, no creativity or lacking in creativity, wooden like I said. Disappointing.

IMDB: no wonder imdb scores are lacking credibility lately, how can one guy "jamesdashner-11223" leave two 10/10 reviews for the same episode when all of the time saying nothing. Come on IMDB.

I write this as a Western person with no real knowledge or bias regarding the Hindu religion, Islam, or the people involved in making this film.

The story seems to centre on "Romeo and Juliet"-like themes of "forbidden" love - certainly not an earth-shattering, ground-breaking movie theme. Some of the characters are, to me, overblown; the mother's histrionics about her daughter's affair with a Muslim, the son who behaves wildly and inappropriately at a Holi party, the daughter-in-law who melts down the father's medals for earrings, and the corpulent sultan who seems to revel in causing conflict.

Certainly the scenery and cinematography are exquisite, but I found the story somewhat difficult to follow at times. I chalk this up to my not being a part of the target audience. I did not really understand the significance of the songs and poems. I don't know how the parliament/city council/legislature depicted here works or is constituted. I don't understand the nuances of how people dress for various occasions. I did not grasp that a kiss in a temple was so significant. Other productions about India (Jewel in the Crown, Gandhi Slumdog Millionaire) made these kind of things clear to the Western viewer, but A Suitable Boy seems to have missed that mark.

I don't know and can't comment on whether or not the show was pro or anti Hindu, only on whether or not I understood and enjoyed it. That seems to boil down to a 50-50 split - some parts were good, some were not.

People giving it a lower rating might be the ones who are used to gripping tales these days from the very first episode as gone are the days of good slow burn soap operas. To really appreciate this, one needs to be familiar with Vikram Seth's writing, which itself takes time to dwell in you with its fine details to all the characters and the period they are set in and secondly, not many people are familiar with Mira Nair's work. She has a beautiful eye for details in her direction and the way she narrates her story is always with a kind of tenderness and her characters take their own time to amalgamate. I understand, at first, it's a bit unusual to see many familiar faces having lengthy conversations in english, especially the actors whom we have only seen in 'Hindi' speaking cinema/series till now. But I do believe the ensemble is doing justice to their roles and with time we will become more attached to them. I for one will be rooting for the show.