I thought that I could follow my friend’s recommendation to ignore other critics’ opinions, and would see Doin’ It, a new classroom comedy by Sara Zandieh, Neel Patel, and Lilly Singh as a result of its trailer. Maybe I was missing stuff by using aggregated critical opinion I mused that I’d otherwise be glad to have seen.
This movie starts with Maya’s and her mother Veena’s return to the United States from India where they relocated when Maya was a precocious teen. Maya now thirty years old hopes to launch an app and her career but soon discovers her unfamiliarity with its demographic, which she can research according to her friend Jess by becoming a substitute teacher.
Maya is hired to teach sex-ed, which is even more uncomfortable for her because she as a virgin is less experienced than many of her students. Jess offers to help her both complete her high school bucket list and develop her sexual experience, and their efforts are aided by the another new teacher Alex, a cafeteria worker named Barbara, and even her former infatuation, which also enables Maya to reconsider her app and even finding funding.
The predicable plot includes a Dead Poet’s Society moment around sex-positivity, which both inspires Maya’s revised app and helps her regain her job. The stock characters include the tolerant and thoughtful lover, who is both the other minority (Filipino) new hire and teaches computer science, which offers them yet another connection and a potentially productive conflict.
Maya had expected to teach computer science, so this rivalry could have added depth to their characters but does not. This missed opportunity is consistent with Maya’s larger lack of development. At no point does she reveal anything more than superficial satisfaction with her relationships, including her friendship with the mysterious cafeteria worker who befriends Maya, audits Maya’s class, reveals her hidden wealth, and ultimate funds Maya’s new app.
Too many of the gags, which also appear in the trailer, aren’t that amusing, which doesn’t prevent them from reappearing. For example, the vibrator from Jess is misrepresented by Maya as a handheld blender, which her mother uses for their breakfast smoothie and later another for her love-interest neighbor. Its initial shortcoming only means that subsequent scenes are bigger failures.
This movie I believe contains a larger story but never explores it. It could have been a narrative about sexual maturation in an Indian / Indian-American home or of an older or brown or older, brown woman. It could have considered emotional and physical intimacy in a continuum of relationships, especially as people migrate, age, or even relate to aging parents.
Such a story could have offered insights about shifting notions sexuality that could be useful to anyone. None of that though and not much else appeared on the screen, which is why I slipped out of the theater as fast as I could once the credits started to roll.
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