'A Suitable Boy’s' accent expert states the idea behind charcaters' style of speaking

Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy started streaming on Netflix on October 23, 2020. The movie features Ishaan Khatter and Tabu in lead roles. With the movie streaming on Netflix, Twitteratis were keen to point out the accent of the characters in the movies. Recently, Hetal Varia, Mumbai-based voice, dialect and accent consultant who worked in A Suitable Boy clarified the reason behind characters' accents and dialogue delivery. 

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Accent expertise talks about the style of dialogue delivery in A Suitable Boy

Hetal Varia mentioned that they sound like this as Indian speaking English in 1950 sounded like. Varia added that A Suitable Boy takes place in the 1950s in post-independent India. Hetal mentioned that the language Indians spoke then was English but it was still spoken by Indians for whom it wasn’t the first language. She added that the important thing to remember is that most characters in the series are from well-bred families and their manner of speech is inherently different.

The Huffing post report stated that for modern viewers the dialogues of A Suitable Boy felt unnatural and theatrical as if the actors are over-emphasising the words for fear of them not coming across as clearly as they want. Hetal acknowledged the same and said that what for viewers is over-enunciation, for some people it’s just something that makes the dialogue accessible. She added that they were clean about making it accessible for every viewer.

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Hetal Varia addressed the variation in the English accent in India. She said that Indians have a lot of affectation in their speech now. She added that it’s a mix of both US and UK. Varia further added that in the 50s, there was an emphasis on the speech being pure, correct and regal. She added that there was colonial touch in the language spoken in the country. The high-society people exclusively spoke in English, she added.

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Hetal Varia also revealed the instructions given to her as the accent expert. She told that her brief was to get the artist to speak deliberate English but steer far from the South Indian stereotype. She added that in that deliberation, the characters couldn’t sound like caricatures who are hitting the consonants. Hetal Varia also stated a difference in the dialogue delivery of Ishaan Khatter who portrayed the character of Maan and Ram Kapoor who was seen in the role of Mahesh Kapoor.

Hetal Varia said that there is always a difference in the speech of the young and the old. She added that they are both well-spoken but have a different style of speaking. Varia mentioned that the makers needed to ensure that all the characters spoke in a way that indicated they belonged to the same era and at the same time not sounds like each other.

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