Four Years Later: Romantic drama of rarely told Australian story worth watching

There’s an often untold aspect about the stories of Australian immigrants, which is that many people arrive in this country separated from their families.

The circumstances are different, and some aren’t forcibly parted, but it’s a familiar tale throughout diaspora communities.

It’s not unusual for one person to come over first, setting up for a future while the rest of their family wait in their homeland, or for children to stay behind with grandparents and reunited with their mum and dads down the track.

Almost everyone knows someone like this, but it’s not an experience that has been centred on Australian TV. There is value in sharing this story because it’s not often the wider audience is able to consider the emotional toll of being separated, and how it affects the way people negotiate a new environment.

Four Years Later, an eight-part SBS drama, is not just an exercise in empathy, although is certainly at least a by-product. It is a romance both sweeping and mundane, about all the textures, challenges and joys in one couple’s journey.

Sri (Shahana Goswami) and Yash (Akshay Ajit Singh) meet through a marriage matchmaker in Jaipur but they fall in love by themselves. She has ambitions for a big life and a grand romance and he loves her zest and energy.

They quickly marry but immediately afterwards, he is accepted into a medical traineeship program in Australia. Yash’s father makes the decision that Sri should not go with him, because she’ll be a “distraction” to his studies. Sri reluctantly stays in India where the custom is she now lives with her in-laws, including Yash’s very patriarchal dad.

Four years later, in a tough moment, Yash calls Sri and tells her he needs her. She hops on a plane and arrives in a world apart from her own. The beach town in which Yash has set up is wide and breezy.

She makes friends with Gabs (Kate Box), a free-wheeling surfer and local café owner. The freedoms afforded by Australia allow her to open up and settle into herself.

That’s in contrast to Yash, who despite having the head start, who for four years has had a lonely life. You rarely see him outside of his spartan unit or his workplace, which speaks to how small his world has become.

He’s under immense pressure at work, and from his dad to send money home. So he takes on extra shifts and hasn’t managed to carve out a life for himself. The umbilical cord of familial obligations stretches continents.

Sri and Yash have a hard time connecting, and through flashbacks, we come to understand the experiences they’ve had as individuals over their time apart, and how that’s changed them but also how they relate to each other. There are secrets, mistakes and hurt — and now they’re physically back together, can they reunite emotionally?

Four Years Apart is a series that takes an honest look at the ups and downs of a relationship challenged by distance and time. No one is the same person as they were four years ago.

There are moments of giddy joy, heartbreak and tension, anchored by compassionate performances from Goswami and Singh who lift the production from its budgetary constraints. The staging and set-ups aren’t always compelling — although it does what it can with scenes set outside and in India where they also shot — but Goswami and Singh know how to command your attention.

Four Years Later is a great series that tells a specific but universal Australian story.

Four Years Later is on SBS On Demand