How To Ruin Diwali: Meet The Parents is a new entry in the South African comedy franchise on Netflix, this time about a very different culture clash than previous How To Ruin series explored.
Opening Shot: A woman watches a car-full of fireworks accidentally go off, and we see her flabbergasted face. In voice over, she says, “Diwali is supposed to be about new beginnings; light over darkness. But gosh… I think I just complicated all of that.” We see the fireworks explode out of the car, the lights all over Durbin, South Africa go out, and a woman saying, “That’s it! Diwali is canceled!”
The Gist: Thirty-six hours earlier, Mmabatho (Rosemary Zimu), a successful eye surgeon, is nervous about meeting the parents of her fiancé, Varshen (Kyle Clark), who used to be a doctor but now bakes. However, his family, who live in Durbin, are a medical dynasty, and Mmabatho feels pressure for everything she presents to them to be perfect. It doesn’t help that they don’t know that they’ve gotten engaged. Varshen wants to announce it during the family’s traditional Diwali celebration.
When they get down to Drubin, Varshen surprises Mmabatho and invites her squabbling family, especially her long-divorced parents Penelope (Sonia Mbele) and Mandla (Meshack Mavuso). Penelope brings along her “lover,” a dim yoga instructor. When they get to dinner with Varshen’s family, the surprises keep coming, as his parents Sharm (Koobeshan Naidoo) and Tarina (Jailoshini Naidoo) were never told Mmabatho’s name or the fact that she wasn’t Indian. Then Mmabatho’s family shows up uninvited.
Sharm seems to be more accepting of Mmabatho than Tarina, telling Mmabatho the story of a Black woman he dated before settling down with Tarina. Mmabatho repeats that story during a toast, not realizing that no one in Vashen’s family — including Tarina — knew about that little factoid.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? How To Ruin Diwali: Meet The Parents is a spinoff of the other entries in the How To Ruin series, like How To Ruin Christmas and How To Ruin Love.
Our Take: The How To Ruin franchise has always been about culture clashes, but the clashes tend to be “traditional vs. modern” or “religious vs. secular”. Here, it truly is a culture clash, with whatever traditions Mmabatho’s crazy family follow — and they vary, as Mandla follows Zulu traditions when he feels like it, and Penelope, well, doesn’t — with the modern but reverent Hindu traditions of Varshen’s family.
The storytelling is supposed to be broad and farcical, with lots of mistakes and misunderstandings making things spiral out of control. But we found the smaller moments funnier than the broader ones, like the fact that we never know the name of the wife of Varshen’s sister, just the fact that she’s a veterinarian; in fact, the idea that a vet isn’t a “real doctor” is the first point which Mmabatho and Varshen’s family can agree on.
We also enjoyed the tension among Varshen’s family, because it is far from the perfect life that Mmabatho thinks they lead. Of course, no family is perfect, but Mmabatho’s family dysfunction is so outwardly obvious that she thinks that other families that don’t show outward fractures don’t have issues. This is how she finds out that not only do they have issues, but they’re pretty big ones. It’ll be fun to see how those play out as Mmabatho tries to mend fences and demonstrate that she wants to be a part of Varshen’s family.
Performance Worth Watching: As with the other shows in this franchise, the female lead has to carry the comedic and emotional load, and Rosemary Zimu does a great job with both assignments.
Parting Shot: Amid the chaos, Mmabatho’s bestie Zama (Denise Zimba) calls to find out how it’s going; Mmabatho asks her to come down to Durbin for backup. “What I really need is a miracle,” we hear her voice over say.
Our Call: STREAM IT. How To Ruin Diwali: Meet The Parents is a funny entry in the How To Ruin franchise; it’s about a culture clash we haven’t explored before and the series has a strong lead performance at its center.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
