American Chai

Released not long after Piyush Dinker Pandya's AMERICAN DESI and Krutin Patel's ABCD, this enormously likable first feature from writer-director Anurag Mehta treads similar ground: A first-generation Indian American, or "Desi," finds himself caught in a tug-of-war between the intractable traditionalism of his parents and the relative freedoms of American youth culture. College junior Sureel (Aalok Mehta) thinks he's found a way out of that bind: He simply lies to his parents about what he's doing with his life. While his ultra-traditional father (the excellent Paresh Rawal) and somewhat more understanding mother (Bharti Desai) think their dear son is a pre-med studen...