Screenwriter Jemima Khan utilises lived experience for cross-cultural rom-com delight from the production company that gave us Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary...
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Starring: Lily James, Emma Thompson, Shazad Latif
Running time: 108 minutes
A world away from the raunchy Tina Turner biopic of the same title, What’s Love Got to Do with It? re-establishes the genre of rom-com into the world of cinema this March. Coming from Working Title, the production company behind the London-based masterpieces that are Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, the film navigates the complexities of relationships, from Tinder-assisted Western love to assisted marriage. It also touches on more underlying issues such as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and hypocrisy associated with the ‘white gaze’.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is directed by Lahore-born Shekhar Kapur and written by Jemima Khan, a journalist-turned-screenwriter whose ex-husband includes the retired cricketer that later served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan. It also stars highly esteemed actors such as Lily James and Emma Thompson.
The plot follows Kazim (played by Shazam Latif) who decides he wants to please his Pakistani parents. Ignoring any chemistry that there might be between himself and Zoe (Lily James), he goes with his parents to meet Mo the Matchmaker (Assam Choudhry), who will aid an arranged marriage for him (which we learn is now described as an “assisted” marriage, rather than an “arranged” marriage).
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is a recommended fun and easy-to-watch film
Zoe, in contrast, is a commitment-phobic partygoer and successful documentary maker who gets funding to make a film that reveals the assisted marriage process. When Mo comes back with Lahore-based Maymouna (Sajal Aly), Kazim and his family fly to Pakistan, equipped with Zoe, her camera and bitter but highly comical divorcee mum Cath (Emma Thompson). As events move to Lahore (where the writer lived for many years), all details are examined and viewed by Zoe and her camera.
Pakistan, not commonly seen on western screens, is conveyed as joyful and hospitable, with vibrant scenes in Anarkali Bazaar, as well as magnificent banquets and dancing. While I feel there could have been more depth to the issues shown, the film succeeds in exploring, at a surface level, the different types of models a relationship can follow. There are also thoughtful attempts to comment on what different cultures can teach each other.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is a recommended fun and easy-to-watch film with a positive cross-cultural angle. However, unlike Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, it is likely to be forgettable.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is now showing at Broadway Cinema
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