Inspired by her own experience seeing arranged marriages in Pakistan, Jemima Khan's screenplay has a lot to love—especially for those curious about life beyond Tinder.
The British rom-com is a curious icon. Sputtering male leads and self-deprecation somehow turned our national characteristics into a money pot; by the time the noughties were over, we were a sensation among the anglosphere, a miracle that made socially award, misanthropic Brits feel we were sexy.
Strangely, though, I never noticed any of my British-Pakistani friends being told they sounded just like Hugh Grant in a bar—although there was never a short supply of tourists asking them where they really were from.
Having emigrated to Pakistan for seven years in a whirlwind romance with the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan in her 20’s, Jemima Khan’s screenplay What’s Love Got to Do With It? is keen to explore that disconnect—questioning if that Western brand of romance is really the be-all-end-all for the modern British love story.
Overworked, perpetually single documentary maker Zoe (Lilly James) is the childhood friend and neighbour of Pakistani doctor Kazim (Shazad Latif); a thirty something still cool enough to kick a football but who hides in his parent’s treehouse to smoke. Her mother Cath (Emma Thompson) is dotty, warm and a little racist; and terrified her daughter is doomed to be a spinster. Zoe and Kazim are clearly in love, but don’t want risk it; and after following his traditional Muslim family and opting for an arranged marriage (the politically sensitive term, he informs us, is ‘assisted’), Zoe is compelled to document her friend’s romance; cynically thinking it will further her own career.
While Thompson and James play their parts well, the Pakistani cast give the movie its highs, especially as events shift to Lahore. A Bollywood style score and dance sequence, Qawwali music that calls love a ‘mental illness’, and the deft hand of director Shekhar Kapur creates a Joyland style nightlife that breathes life into the crowds, values and sounds of Pakistan. Highlights are with the movie’s marriage advisor played by Asim Chaudhry (referred to as the ‘scene stealer’ by director Kapur); and the ancient Khan matriarch—in a neo-realist style she’s both the fictional grandmother and the actor’s genuine, untrained grandmother—who describes London as a ‘brothel’ in bitterly poetic Urdu.
Despite the tried and tested Working Title structure, Khan cleverly takes aim at both sides, especially with a pair of TV producers, and reflects a Britain that’s more cultured and complicated than Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’ Diary or Love Actually lets on. Unlike that lonely British tourist wondering if he really can get laid in America, the film’s debate over arranged and accidental relationships never gives up an easy answer. Acknowledging the ‘continent’ between the families’ redbrick homes, love, in all its forms, is served up like a pleasant jelabi dessert: tangled, messy, and always sweet.
