Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ravi Patel’s Pursuit Of Happiness’ On HBO Max, Where The Actor/Director Travels The World To Help Bring Happiness To His Own Life

Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness is a CNN-produced docuseries hosted by Patel, who is best known for roles in shows like Master of None and for co-directing (with his sister Geeta) the film Meet The Patels. In the series, he takes people close to him, whether they’re his parents, wife or friends, to destinations around the world to figure out how he can bring what the people in those areas do to be happy back to Los Angeles and his own family’s lives.

RAVI PATEL’S PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Ravi Patel talks to his wife Mahaley about the differences between her parents and his. Let’s just say his parents have no filter and don’t care at all about politeness. But that’s one of the reasons Ravi loves them so much.

The Gist: In the first episode, Ravi travels with his parents, Champa and Vasant, to Mérida, a Mexican city that has become a retirement destination for people from all over the world. The idea is that, with his Champa coming up on her 65th birthday, Ravi is looking to see if there’s a better way for his parents to live out their retirement years than just move from North Carolina to L.A. and babysit his daughter. (Vasant is recently retired, but Champa continues to work.)

What Ravi finds, along with the funny and charming Champa and Vasant, is a community of seniors who feel like they’re living out their remaining years their best way possible. Sure, there are trade-offs, like the fact that they can’t see their kids and grandkids as much as they would if they lived closer to their kids, but all of the seniors the trio met wholeheartedly endorse this lifestyle.

And, while they were slightly resistant to it when they got to Mérida, Champa and Vasant start warming to the idea, and not just because they took adavantage of the free-flowing margaritas. Ravi contemplates why people feel compelled to work after retirement or not live an easygoing life filled with fun, new friends, and beach time. As they visit different areas in the Yucatan, he comes to understand his parents’ sacrifices when they came to the U.S. from India shortly before he was born in the ’70s, and tries to think about how to reconcile his desire to spend as much time with them as possible in their senior years with the desire to see them living their best lives in retirement.

Our Take: In the four-episode first season of Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness, Patel examines how he and his parents can age well, contemplates how he and his wife overparent their daughter by traveling to Japan, goes to South Korea with a friend to examine the consequences of being a workaholic, and travels with a friend to Denmark to find out about the country’s anti-immigration stance and how that reflects on his own life.

So the issues Patel examines in the series are some pretty big ones, and he does a good job of taking these huge concepts down to a personal level while keeping the themes universal. He keeps things light, too, which we think is a better way to examine life’s big questions than get super-serious about them. While he loves saying that he’s drinking margaritas “for work”, he also talks seriously about the idea that his time with his parents is now very limited, and that there’s a conflict between his wish to spend time with them and his desire for them to enjoy their remaining years.

It helps that Champa and Vasant are so charming. Vasant is pretty hilarious, but both are pretty good storytellers and like a good laugh. It’s no wonder why Ravi is so close to them. But the best scene in the entire episode is when Ravi and Vasant surprise Champa with a 65th birthday party at a rented house in the city. Despite the fact that everyone at the party are people they just met in town that week, Champa was overcome with emotion in the face of such a welcoming and warm reception. If anything sold the senior Patels on retirement life in Mexico, that may have been it.

As usual with these CNN-produced documentaries, the photography is top-notch and really brings you into the destination that’s being profiled, closer to the actual culture of the town than most travelogues are able to do.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: After we see all three Patels struggle to down Jello shots at Champa’s party, we see the senior Patels reflecting on the party in an interview; Vasant compliments his wife on her Bollywood-style dancing on the beach, and expects a return compliment, but Champa never gives him one. And the two of them just laugh; that’s decades of marriage for you, folks.

Sleeper Star: We’ve already mentioned Champa and Vasant, but we’re looking forward to the episode where Ravi travels with his wife Mahaley to Japan to find out about detached parenting.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing, really.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness works because Patel gets very personal during each episode, but in a way that makes what he’s examining relatable to everyone watching.

oel 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, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Ravi Patel's Pursuit Of Happiness On HBO Max