''Meet the Patels'' is a 2014 American romantic comedy documentary film directed by siblings Geeta V. Patel and Ravi V. Patel. The film explores the expectations surrounding marriage in the Patels' first-generation Indian immigrant family and in wider American society. It had its international premiere at Hot Docs in April 2014. Fox Searchlight acquired remake rights after the documentary won the Audience Award at the

Los Angeles Film Festival The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episod ...

Plot

Neither Ravi Patel, a 30 year old small-time upcoming actor, nor his sister are married, to the chagrin of their parents Vasant (Financial planner) and Champa (an accomplished match-maker and real estate agent), who had an arranged marriage. However, Ravi has been, without his parents' knowledge, dating

Audrey Audrey () is an English feminine given name. It is the Anglo-Norman form of the Anglo-Saxon name ''Æðelþryð'', composed of the elements '' æðel'' "noble" and ''þryð'' "strength". The Anglo-Norman form of the name was applied to Saint Aud ...

, a white red-headed American woman, and Ravi recently broke up with her. On a family trip to India (during "wedding season") he agrees to make a serious effort to find a partner, alternating between a matchmaking process of dates with Indian-American women from among the

Patel The Patel is an Indian surname or title, predominantly found in the state of Gujarat representing the community of land-owning farmers and later (with the British East India Company) businessmen, agriculturalists and merchants. Traditionally th ...

clan based in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

by circulation of

biodata In industrial and organizational psychology, biodata is biographical data. Biodata is "...factual kinds of questions about life and work experiences, as well as items involving opinions, values, beliefs, and attitudes that reflect a historical pers ...

sheets; registering with Indian marriage websites, identifying potential mates by evaluation and through extended family relations, and matrimonial ceremonies & conventions. Interspersed between the dating activity, much of it organized by his parents who continue to lament his lack of commitment to the process and high standards. Ravi discusses his experiences and his feelings about the whole thing with his sister Geeta, meanwhile Geeta also notices Ravi's one nights with Audrey, even after breaking up and Audrey's consistent request to break their plateau friendship. Ravi eventually recognizes that his frame of reference is always Audrey, his first love and no matter what or where he searches, he is not going to find Audrey in others. The parents hearing the news from Ravi at first become reluctant but come around, conclude their match-making and relax their constraints in expectations and accept their son's wishes for being with someone he truly loves, and Ravi ends up back with Audrey, who eventually wins the affection of his parents and adopts Indian traditions.

Production

Production for the film began in early 2009 under directors Ravi Patel and Geeta Patel. The film was produced by Janet Eckholm and Geralyn Dreyfous along with

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

and received funding from the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting).

Filming techniques

The movie alternates between

live action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ga ...

cinematography (filmed by Ravi's sister Geeta) with limited effort made to address lighting issues or the intrusion of microphones into the camera's view; and animation sequences of Ravi being interviewed by Geeta and explaining events in his dating and family life.

Reception

Critical response

''Meet the Patels'' has received mostly positive reviews from critics. The film premiered at the

where it won the audience choice award leading Fox Searchlight to acquire remake rights. On the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a rating of 87%. The site's critical consensus reads, "''Meet the Patels'' works on multiple levels, offering an affably entertaining documentary about one man looking for love while posing thoughtful questions about cultural assimilation and modern romance."

Accolades

Meet the Patels won the Audience Choice Award at the 2014

, was named a Top 10 Audience Favorite at Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival, named Best Feature Documentary at the Mt. Hood Independent Film Festival, and won the Audience Award at the Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival. It was also named the Best Documentary Film and won the Founders Grand Prize Best Film at the

Traverse City Film Festival The Traverse City Film Festival is an annual film festival held at the end of July in Traverse City, Michigan. The festival was created as an annual event in 2005 to help “save one of America's few indigenous art forms—the cinema". The event ...

References

External links

* {{IMDb title , tt2378401
''Meet''
at

's ''

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Ho ...

'' 2014 documentary films 2014 films Films about immigration to the United States Documentary films about Asian Americans Autobiographical documentary films Films about Indian Americans 2010s English-language films Comedy films about Asian Americans Asian-American romance films 2010s American films