The Offer

The Offer follows Nikita “Nikki” Roy, a twenty-five-year-old Indian American woman who arrives in Chicago determined to become somebody new after serving three months in jail. Nikki is broke, drowning in approximately $130,000 of student loans and credit-card debt, psychologically unstable, and compulsively attracted to wealth. One of the first things she does in Chicago is shoplift groceries from Whole Foods, partly because she cannot afford them and partly because transgression gives her a thrill. She has obtained an unusually cheap guesthouse in one of Chicago’s richest neighborhoods through On Your Feet, a charitable housing program that places minority women in subsidized luxury properties. Nikki lied during the application process, hiding her criminal conviction and inventing a respectable ambition to become a nurse when what she really fantasizes about is fashion, money, beautiful objects and escape. The program itself is transparently performative: its wealthy white founder, Jennifer Cooper, wants to become the “face of inclusion,” while the affluent property owners receive tax advantages and social prestige for participating.

The owners of Nikki’s property are Gabe and Elle, an extraordinarily wealthy, attractive married couple involved in real-estate development. Their eight-million-dollar house stands directly in front of Nikki’s guesthouse, and Nikki quickly becomes obsessed with them. She watches their routines through the windows and eventually orders binoculars. Gabe exercises at six every morning, works constantly and appears disciplined and masculine. Elle swims, does yoga, dresses impeccably and seems to Nikki like the embodiment of effortless wealth. Nikki projects an entire fantasy onto their marriage because their existence represents everything she believes money can provide: security, beauty, freedom from humiliation and insulation from the ugliness of ordinary life.

Nikki’s fascination is rooted in a much older wound. Her father Mahesh managed a Dunkin’ Donuts despite being intelligent and ambitious. He deeply resented the successful Indian doctors and professionals around him and repeatedly taught Nikki that racism and class determined how people treated them. His solution was brutally simple: work hard, become rich, and then people will respect you. Nikki’s mother Mina was beautiful but lived modestly with Mahesh. Nikki grows up absorbing both her father’s class anxiety and her own embarrassment at not belonging to the prosperous version of Indian American life she sees around her.