Movie Review: “Growing Up Smith” Barely Reaches Adolescence

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In 1979, an Indian family moves to America with hopes of living the American Dream. While their 10-year-old boy Smith falls head-over-heels for the girl next door, his desire to become a “good old boy” propels him further away from his family’s ideals than ever before.

Although films about immigrants coming to the Unites States in search of the American Dream aren’t necessarily new – Jim Sheridan’s “In America” dealt with it beautifully, as did Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor,” and Mira Nair’s “The Namesake” – Hollywood could certainly use more features that study the obstacles families face upon arrival to the Land of the Free, the World’s Melting Pot, now ruled by a man intent on building walls to “protect” the country from the very same people that helped shape it. Unfortunately, Frank Lotito’s “Growing Up Smith,” though oh-so-cute and endearing, doesn’t really add up to much or contribute to the aforementioned modest sub-genre of immigration films. Set aside its Indian protagonists’ impediments, and it becomes the most basic of coming-of-age tales; do the opposite, and you get a by-the-numbers, surface look at what it means to be a foreigner, lacking subtlety or any major revelations.

The film is narrated by a grown-up Smith (Samrat Chakrabarti), looking back at his bittersweet childhood. Roni Akurati stars as the titular young version, living in the late-1970s American suburbs. Having recently moved from their homeland, Smith’s folks strictly abide by tradition, his father (Anjul Nigam) proudly showing Smith a picture of his bride-to-be. Tough luck – Smith happens to fall for the girl-next-door, Amy (Brighton Sharbino).

He relentlessly pursues the dream, wearing a bike helmet with the nation’s stars-and-stripes on its side, wanting nothing more than to be a “good ol’ American boy” – until, that is, he chokes on a KFC chicken, because, duh, he’s a vegetarian (but also, who wouldn’t choke on that nasty crap?). “Nice bag, Pocahontas,” the racist white kids – “cowboys,” as Smith refers to them – taunt poor Smith. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” They chase him down alleyways, until “the one cowboy that made up for all the others,” the enigmatic Butch Brunner (a scruffy Jason Lee) – Amy’s father, as it so happens – pulls up in his big ol’ truck and tells those kids to take a hike.

Any more-or-less savvy moviegoer will see the pattern forming here. We follow Smith through his inconsequential (mis)adventures, as he deals with the threat of banishment from his oppressive-but-kind father, wrestles with neurology, befriends Butch, struggles to keep his sister’s boyfriend a secret, woos Amy, and (sorta) stands up against the “cowboys.” Everything is glossed over in an optimistic sheen, with frequent use of music cues and cheap pandering to stimulate emotion.

The cracks in the dream do eventually appear and spread, at first not apparent to Smith, enveloped in the idyllic dawn of adolescence. But the seemingly happy Butch has to sell his chopper in order to survive, Smith faces humiliation in class, his mom Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan) wastes her English linguistics degree sewing away at home, and their Bible-spouting neighbors try to convert them to Christianity. For a moment, the family does achieve a semblance of the much sought-after dream, after an unexpected hunting incident propels Smith to fame. That whole sequence is displayed in a quick montage, just to swiftly catapult back to more obstacles and trauma. The poignant ending almost saves the film’s formulaic structure – although I would have rolled the credits precisely 7 minutes before they did.

It’s unpleasant to criticize children, but the bulk of the narrative’s weight falls on the fragile shoulders of Roni Akurati, and while unquestionably adorable, the kid’s not exactly a magnetic screen presence in the league of, say, a young Haley Joel Osment or Jacob Tremblay. The rest of the cast fares well enough, the highlight being Jason Lee’s Butch, who infuses the film with a much-needed shot of adrenaline and wit. Mysterious and exotic to the Bhatnagars, he shows up for Halloween wearing dirty bedsheets and a John Deere hat, and comes over for dinner with his wife Nancy (Hilarie Burton) and a box of mangled Morton Apple Pie (“you just have to bake it, it’s like two hours at 350…”). Lee knows how to carry a scene. Cruise, give your fellow Scientologist a decent role already!

As for the rest of the film, it lags – and the dialogue doesn’t help. “So is Naan a chicken or a beef or something?” Butch wonders at one point, the Epitome of American Ignorance. “Oh I didn’t know you could grill vegetables!” his hillbilly wife adds. Lotito certainly doesn’t side-step sap: “I don’t want to lose my best friend,” “What good Indian boy will marry you now? You’ve been enjoyed!”, “What is wrong with our children? Whores, all of them!” (Okay, that last one’s kinda funny.) The drama is forced and the comedy struggles, which makes for an uneasy jarring of tones: happy-go-lucky vs. forcefully dramatic. There is no real sense of suspense or involvement. “Growing up Smith” ends up growing up John Doe.

Opens in select theaters Friday, February 3rd including the AMC Stonebriar 24 in Frisco