Growing Up Smith is a coming of age story for a 10 year old Indian boy, whose family has moved from India to middle America. His parent's dream is for them to retain their Indian values while living the American dream, hoping to make enough money to return to India as kings. The kids just want to be normal (to their surroundings) kids.
The movie opens with Smith, the 10 year old boy, being shown a picture of his future bride in India for when he's 22. Smith, meanwhile, is pining for the girl next door. The two families try and act neighbourly, with some lighthearted culture clashes happening along the way. However, Smith and Amy (the neighbor) do become close and that leads to a fatherly relationship with Butch, Amy's father.
Smith, thus grows up with different life lessons coming from both of his father figures, his father and Butch, which does result in conflict with his more traditional Indian father. There may be parts of these lessons which some may see as racist, or as the white father figure showing the proper way over the Indian father. To me, though, they seemed more the way life was in the 70s. Kids would dress up in Native American costumes for Halloween. Parents from a foreign country would, and still go, get upset for leaning too heavily towards Western culture.
The film is lighthearted, fun to watch, and while not brimming with laugh out loud moments funny in its own way. The last 10 minutes of the movie are melancholy compared to the first 90, but they do seem real to the story, and anything else would likely be a betrayal to the characters.
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