Cast: Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri, Shona Babayemi, Shobu Kapoor, Jeff Mirza
Director: Nida Manzoor
Writer: Nida Manzoor
Polite society expects women, and especially young girls, to behave in a certain way that too often pays little heed to their ambitions and individuality. Stories about young South Asian women in immigrant families clashing with their personal identities and cultural ties is practically a sub-genre unto itself with such examples as Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice, and Brick Lane, though perhaps none have ever approached the subject with as much panache as Polite Society. Falling somewhere between an Edgar Wright comedy and a Jackie Chan action movie, Nida Manzoor’s debut feature is an amusing and gutsy coming-of-age story that takes on conservative social mores with a vengeance. And yet with all the stylisation on display, there remains a candidness to the film akin to Catherine Called Birdy, a frankness with which it is willing to treat and discuss themes of girlhood. The film is so audacious and individualistic that you almost want to give it a pass for the clumsier aspects that don’t quite work. Manzoor’s effort is a bold one worthy of applause, but it is still evidently a freshman picture in the way that some scenes are so awkwardly assembled and in how hesitant the movie is as certain junctures to fully commit to the bit. I feel bad saying this because as much as I enjoyed the movie, it feels like it could have been better.
Ria (Priya Kansara, excellent) is a schoolgirl with dreams of becoming a stuntwoman. She attends martial arts classes, films videos of herself performing elaborate kicks and flips, and writes letters to her idol Eunice Huthart (a real stuntwoman most famous for doubling for Angelina Jolie) in the hopes of igniting a mentorship. Her best friend is her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya), an art-school dropout whose periods of lethargy are interrupted only by Ria having her film her latest stunt. But as much as Ria believes in Lena’s artistic calling, she has grown more disillusioned of late and, as the now grown-up daughter of traditional Pakistani parents, that means there’s only really one path left for her. So Ria and Lena are led by their parents to an Eid soirée hosted by family friend Raheela (Nimra Bucha), where the wealthy and successful matriarch plans to show off her pride and joy, her eligible son Salim (Akshay Khanna). Amidst the gaggle of girls who fawn over the handsome doctor, it is Lena who catches his eye and her interest proves reciprocal. Within the month, the two are engaged and ready to start their new life together in Singapore. Ria does not take the news well and is determined to stop the wedding at all costs, certain that there is some nefarious scheme at work to steal Lena away that she must uncover.
On one hand one cannot help but admire how thoroughly and unapologetically Manzoor’s story exists in a world of her own singular creation, even in all of its imperfection. While it can be tricky sometimes to keep track of the disparate machinations and discern whether something happening in the moment is a dream, a hyper-reality, or something in between, but nevertheless it remains engrossing throughout. There are instances when the film tries to settle into a more serious and naturalistic mode, at which point the sudden intrusion of a fantastical flourish feels a little out of place, but one must still admire the way Manzoor is operating on her own particular wavelength and is so determined to bring us all along with her. I just wish the execution was better. As befits a movie about a Bruce Lee fangirl, Polite Society has numerous martial arts fight scenes done in the wuxia style of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but they aren’t as quick and fluid as they should be. The action is not always legible due to the slightly off framing and over-cutting that’s used and it unfortunately does break the spell a bit. With the abundance of talent and imagination on display I’m inclined to credit this more to inexperience than inability, but there it is all the same.
But however unharmonious the movie can get, Kansara remains a reliable constant who finds a way to make even the biggest disparities work. At the centre of all the hijinks, it is the relationship between the sisters that is the heart of the film and Kansara does a truly remarkable job of towing that line between the very human emotions compelling her and the wild turns that the story takes. Ria possesses an uncontainable imagination that goes into full throttle when confronted with the prospect of losing her sister and Kansara fully sells us on the anarchy that governs her world even when the movie falls short. The threat that Ria is so doggedly trying to unearth is one of her own invention (or is it?), but the very thought of losing her best friend, her camerawoman, and the one person who makes her believe that she can follow her own dreams, is so intolerable that she needs it to be real. There is a deeper anxiety going on here rooted in Manzoor’s own experiences as the child of an immigrant South Asian family of cultural expectations and societal pressures. For Ria to be a stuntwoman is so unconventional, it goes beyond being what everybody else treats as a pipe dream to almost a betrayal of the duty she owes her family, a conflict she can only reconcile with her sister also being allowed to pursue her dream rather than be relegated to a wife.
But Ria’s desire is not to forsake her cultural background, it is simple to build an identity of her own. Indeed, her heritage plays a crucial role in shaping her personhood and one of the key qualities of the climax is how she marries her upbringing with the person that she wishes to be. This culminates in her dressing up in an ornate green saree and performing a Bollywood-style dance as part of her elaborate plan to emancipate her sister. The level of specificity on display in Polite Society and the way it informs these themes of culture and personhood is indicative of how this movie could only have been made by someone who came from this specific background. Imperfect though the final result may be, these shortcomings are not fatal for a first-time feature that shows such promise. Manzoor is clearly an emerging talent to watch out for and she is only going to grow more capable and confident with time and experience. A lot of movies of this ilk like to treat identity and culture as ultimately contrary forces, which they sometimes are, but Manzoor finds a way forward that allows Ria to be who she needs to be, both for her family and herself. And what’s so admirable about Polite Society is that it is so abundantly what it wants to be, warts and all.
★★★
Aled Warren Films 