By Richard Ades
“Meeting cute” is a time-honored romcom tradition. Set in the early days of the pandemic, 7 Days offers a new variation in the form of “meeting COVID.”
When Indian-Americans Ravi and Rita (Karan Soni and Geraldine Viswanathan) hold their first date, we’re informed that it takes place in March 2020. Viewers will instantly know why that’s significant: March 2020 was the month that Everything Stopped.
Actually, their date takes place about five minutes before Everything Stopped. The two are taking precautions such as wearing masks (a historical inaccuracy, as the average person didn’t have access to masks until months later), but they’re still able to travel and meet other people. However, that soon changes.
By the time the date comes to its awkward end and they return to Rita’s nearby home, they learn that Ravi is stuck there because the agency that was to supply his rental car has shut down. Reluctantly, Rita offers to let him spend the night on her couch. As you might surmise from the flick’s title, that night stretches into a week’s worth of sheltering in place.
The first directorial effort of Roshan Sethi, who co-wrote the script with Soni, 7 Days is set firmly in the world of Indian-American courtship. Like many stories involving the children of immigrants, it involves a clash between the traditional and the modern.
Ravi belongs to the traditional camp, eschewing meat, alcohol and premarital fooling around, and he assumes Rita is the same. After all, he met her through a traditional dating website. Soon after becoming her houseguest, though, he learns she was only putting on an act to satisfy her mother, who pays her rent. In fact, Rita is the exact opposite of the kind of wife he’s looking for.
At times, 7 Days is like a romcom version of The Odd Couple, pitting the neat mama’s boy Ravi against the sloppy, rebellious Rita. (When he first sees Rita’s messy home, Ravi assumes she has roommates, only to learn she lives alone.) But as the story progresses and the two are forced to face an unexpected challenge, such easy humor is replaced by something deeper and more subtle. At the same time, the two leads—particularly Suni—add nuance to their comedic portrayals.
Do opposites attract? That happens a lot in run-of-the-mill romcoms, but 7 Days may have something else in mind. With the help of brief interviews of actual married couples that are shown in the early moments, it examines the possibility that love is something that’s built with the help of empathy and familiarity rather than being a magical force that appears out of thin air.
If that’s true, then just maybe the conservative Ravi and the free-thinking Rita have a chance to become a couple in spite of themselves.
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
7 Days (no MPAA rating) is available through VOD outlets beginning April 26.
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