Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Archies’ takes the audience on a whirlwind musical journey, where a group of teenagers is spurred into action when they discover that the heart of their beloved town is going to be torn down. As they try to save Green Park, they also have to juggle the complexities within their own gang, especially as a love triangle starts to develop between Betty, Archie, and Veronica. As the story progresses, the town itself becomes one of the characters and the setting of the story plays an important part in the way things turn out eventually. Here’s everything that should be known about the place and the time period in which ‘The Archies’ takes place. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Archies Take Place in the Fictional Town of Riverdale
‘The Archies’ takes place in the fictional town of Riverdale, which is somewhere in North India. According to the history lesson at the beginning of the movie, Riverdale was founded by a British officer named Sir John Riverdale. He was posted in Mumbai, where he fell in love with the locale and also with an Indian woman. He also befriended a prince, who once took him on a hunt in his kingdom, where Sir John fell in love with the nature of the place. He used all of his savings to lease the place from the king and founded Riverdale, a haven for Anglo-Indians, a place they could turn to after India won its independence from the British.
The real location of the town is unspecified, but considering its hilly terrain and lush greenery, it is expected that the town is somewhere in the hilly regions of Northern India. While Riverdale might be presented as a North Indian town, the filming for the movie took place entirely in South India, with Ooty and Mumbai sitting in for various locations.
The town in the Netflix movie is modern yet close to its roots and conscious of the nature around it. The focus is particularly on the Anglo-Indian community, which allows the film, which is set in India, to keep the original names of the characters from the comic book, which is set somewhere in America.
The Archies is Set in the Year 1964
The events in ‘The Archies’ take place in the year 1964. The protagonists of the story are, at this moment, around 17, with all of them having been born in 1947, the year of India’s Independence. This is also when Riverdale was formed by Sir John, and the practice of planting trees on a child’s fifth birthday in Green Park was started. Archie and his friends also have trees by their name in the park, which is why the place holds such importance to all of them, along with the other people in the town.
‘The Archies’ is based on the comic book series of the same name. When Netflix India bought its rights and started contemplating a film adaptation, it was decided to use the 1960s as the setting. It was closer to the original timeline of the Archies comics (as opposed to the contemporary setting) and allowed the filmmakers to match that vibe of the comics and stay in character while also charting their own course.
According to the film’s director, Zoya Akhtar, the ’60s setting also felt right because this was the decade when the world was going through a lot of upheavals, and there was a wave of young beliefs where the generation felt that they had the power to change the world. She wanted to infuse the characters in the movie with the same feeling and decided to use the 60s to tell the story of Archie and his friends in Riverdale.
Read More: Was Netflix’s The Archies Filmed in India?
