nadia’s review published on Letterboxd:
here are some of my notes on divya narendra, the most underrated main character of this film:
1. as a person of color, divya didn't have automatic access to spaces like the phoenix or the porcellian clubs and likely had to latch on to morons like the twins to thrive at a mainly white institution like harvard
2. when the twins decide they want to meet with the president of harvard and divya's immediate reaction is 'you can't get a meeting with larry summers' and tyler goes 'my brother and i.... we pay tuition at this school'............... [laughs] i have to laugh. white people
2b. and then divya POINTEDLY not going to the meeting with summers because he KNEW it'd be useless.... perhaps the smartest person in the film huh
3. he was an applied math major at harvard. applied math.
4. at the beginning of the film, he takes the lead over the winklevi of talking to mark, setting up meetings with mark, pitching the ENTIRE idea of mark to the twins
5. the winklevi were willing to let mark keep stepping on them and rescheduling and blowing them off.... until divya put his foot down and wants to hire the sopranos to beat the shit out of him with a hammer
6. we talk a lot about eduardo's relationship w his father but never about divya's relationship with HIS. according to wikipedia he was born in queens to two immigrant doctors. TRULY started from the bottom now we here
7. in the scene where divya finds out about facebook, he's on a valentine's day date at a men's choir concert. which he proceeds to literally RUN AWAY from... seemingly to tell the winklevosses about mark, but honestly could've been escaping from the singing.... and honestly? valid
8. max minghella, who plays divya in the movie, is a white guy and he was really worried that he wasn't getting aspects of the character correct in his portrayal. so when the irl divya narendra came to set, armie hammer and josh pence convinced him it would be funny to do an indian accent (even though he didn't have one for real) and scare the SHIT out of max minghella, who apparently went into a panic and nearly cried
