What's Love Got To Do With It?
What's Love Got To Do With It? [2023]
Starring: Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson & Sajal Ali
Screenplay by Jemima Goldsmith & Direction by Shekhar Kapur
Language: English (and short passages of Urdu)
I was kind of dragged to this movie without really knowing what it was about: I was told that it was ‘right up my alley’. Well I can safely say that the person who said this was not wrong. Forget south Asian representation in film, but there’s finally a movie with positive Pakistani representation (that is not a Pakistani film). With all the recent stresses in my life, it felt really good to just watch a feel-good movie. And what is a better feel-good movie than a rom-com? When I found out that the movie was about arranged marriages, I felt an odd sense of pride: my cousin is in the process of getting an arranged marriage as I speak.
I can’t really say much about the acting from the main characters: I can say that most performances were fairly run-of-the-mill. It’s safe to say that this was nobody’s magnum opus. I will say that two performances that did stand out were those of Emma Thompson and Shabana Azmi.
Let’s start with Emma Thompson: I can safely say that she is the comedy queen. To be honest, most of the humour in this film came from her! A constant source of energy and optimism, she saved the movie from sometimes long lulls, and she made sure that nothing ever got too depressing - the movie is supposed to be a fun watch after all.
Next, Shabana Azmi. The role of a Pakistani mother is a complex one: I can say that from lived experience. She was able to balance the fine line between more comedic scenes and the more intense ones, and she handled each very well. I can definitely say that I know what a Pakistani mother of that age looks like, and Azmi was textbook. At least I can say that her role wasn’t ridiculously overdramatic or stereotyped.
On the topic of stereotypes, that what I loved most about the movie. As a Pakistani, if something was offensive, I would be the first one to feel insulted. However, the stereotypes about Pakistan, Islam and the arranged marriage process as a whole were so funny because they were handled in such a tasteful way! It was so nice to finally hear a joke in a movie that you can fully understand: that centres around the experiences of your culture. Pakistan is underrepresented in foreign film, and so it is very seldom that I get to feel these experiences. That's one BIG plus.
Even the setting! The fact that shooting in Lahore made up a large portion of the movie was very special to me: seeing my country's culture, traditions, and way of life being shown through a foreign lens was captivating. We often take the quirks of our culture as a given, something we take massively for granted. This movie, to an extent, taught me to be more appreciative of my culture, something that is so diverse and different to what people think of when they first think of Pakistan.
And my favourite part, of course, was the scene with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. Khan is an incredibly famous and esteemed musician in the Indian subcontinent: he is a unifying force for the people of Pakistan as a whole. Seeing him there added a level of appreciation for the movie that is difficult to explain.
Whilst the movie was average through an objective lens (5/10), because of all the cultural references and the impact that it made on me, I would have the rate the film a 7.5/10.
