Polite Soci­ety

‘Polite soci­ety’ is a turn of phrase that came to promi­nence in the late 1700s, epit­o­mis­ing haughty upper-class judge­ment that deemed cer­tain behav­iour to be unbe­com­ing. As the title of Nida Manzoor’s com­plete­ly delight­ful debut fea­ture, the writer/​director co-opts this atmos­phere of Regency-era snob­bery to rep­re­sent mod­ern Pak­istani soci­ety as gov­erned by an unof­fi­cial coun­cil of dis­ap­prov­ing ​“aun­ties” – an adver­sary that assumes many guis­es for her action hero­ine to bring down.

“When I’m old­er, I’m going to be a stunt­woman.” Karate-chop­ping her way onto a big screen near you is the irre­press­ible pro­tag­o­nist of Polite Soci­ety, who likes to remind any­one who will lis­ten about her des­tiny, regard­less of their inter­est or, in the case of her teach­ers and par­ents, lack of enthu­si­asm. Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) bull­dozes through life with her ambi­tions front-and-cen­tre, and her only hype­woman on the home front is her big sis­ter Lena (Ritu Arya) who is, when we meet her, slumped in the dol­drums of depres­sion hav­ing just dropped out of art school.

Though she has to be wres­tled out of bed, Lena is ready to get behind the smart­phone and film all the lat­est sick moves for her sis’ YouTube chan­nel while yelling out encour­age­ment. Mir­ror­ing Lena’s moral sup­port, Ria is deter­mined that her old­er sib­ling will over­come her self-doubt and become a rad­i­cal new cre­ative. Empow­ered by each other’s rebel­lion, the sis­ters rep­re­sent the new front of Mus­lim women, com­ing togeth­er to sup­port each other’s dreams in the face of inter­gen­er­a­tional scorn.

This sol­i­dar­i­ty faces its great­est test in the form of Sal­im (Akhshay Khan­na) who, like the clas­sic Pak­istani dream­boat, is a promis­ing young doc­tor look­ing for mar­riage. He fil­ters girls not through Tin­der but instead under the over­bear­ing, foren­sic gaze of his moth­er, Raheela (Nim­ra Bucha). Sal­im meets Lena at an Eid par­ty, sor­ry, ​“soirée”, thrown by Raheela, and the pair quick­ly take a shine to each oth­er. This encounter sets Lena on a path to wealth and house­wifery – all to Ria’s utter horror.

Lena just wants safe­ty and secu­ri­ty and, in this econ­o­my, it is tru­ly hard out here to be a girl, stand­ing in front of a boy. But, she’s clear­ly been caught at a moment of self-doubt and it is up to Ria to res­cue her from the vil­lain of patri­ar­chal submission.

Though Ria clear­ly mis­un­der­stands the author when she yells at her sis­ter, ​“Don’t do a Jane Austen, and throw it all away for a man!”, the ref­er­ence is per­haps more apt to her. Ria goes through an almost reverse ​‘Northang­er Abbey’, gaslit into assum­ing her para­noia about Sal­im and his fam­i­ly is unwar­rant­ed, when, as the trends in much recent cin­e­ma are keen to tell us, from the heights of Par­a­site to the lows of The Menu, rich peo­ple do be crazy.

Kansara man­ages to pull off incred­i­bly earnest and expres­sive ado­les­cent frus­tra­tion, even if the same can­not quite be said of her besties Alba (Ella Bruc­co­leri) and Clara (Seraphi­na Beh), actress­es slight­ly too old and built to fit the gar­ish red uni­form of Ria’s girls’ school. How­ev­er, it’s clear that the cast are hav­ing an absolute ball reliv­ing the life and death melo­dra­mas of ado­les­cence, with Manzoor’s script unabashed­ly embrac­ing the cringe‑y, obnox­ious and the rude.

From a for­mal van­tage, the fast-paced edit­ing and hilar­i­ous zooms con­tribute to a sense of amus­ing anar­chy, and as the graph­ic-nov­el-esque chap­ters unfold, Priya lev­els up like a clas­sic video game char­ac­ter. From the small fry ene­my of school bul­ly Kovaks (Shona Babaye­mi) to final boss­es, The Wife­hunter and the Moth­er-in-Law, the epic fight scenes scale up as Ria hones her skills and the stakes get higher.

Though Nim­ra Bucha is fair­ly new to West­ern screens, fol­low­ing up her vil­lain arc in the 2022 TV series, Ms. Mar­vel, she’s quick­ly carv­ing out a niche for her­self as the epit­o­me of the clas­sic Pak­istani arche­type of evil Moth­er-in-Law. Her deep voice, arch per­son­al­i­ty and cheek­bones ready to cut unsus­pect­ing future daugh­ters are per­fect­ly utilised here, with the poise to back up her dan­ger­ous Kung-Fu moves. She sub­verts aspects of brown girl wom­an­hood to make them ter­ri­fy­ing, tying up Ria in a pacheri and tor­tur­ing her, Bond-vil­lain-style, with wax­ing. As the wed­ding events progress, Ria must embrace an all-danc­ing, sal­war kameez-wear­ing act in a show­down of Edgar Wright action-com­e­dy proportions.

Direc­tor Nida Man­zoor cri­tiques how South Asian par­ents pri­ori­tise ​“a good match” over the per­son­al ambi­tions of their chil­dren. Even Ria and Lena’s moth­er Fati­ma (Shobu Kapoor) reit­er­ates that she ​“let Lena do the art school thing,” see­ing her­self as pro­gres­sive but with lim­i­ta­tions. It is an intrigu­ing mid­dle ground for Kapoor, on one side, her role as Lady Sheffield in Bridger­ton, who dis­owns any non-nobil­i­ty in her fam­i­ly, to the oth­er end of the spec­trum, the embar­rass­ing­ly eager moth­er in Manzoor’s TV sit­com We Are Lady Parts, only too ready to embrace her daughter’s new punk-rock era.

In Polite Soci­ety, anoth­er hur­dle for Ria to over­come is Fatima’s need to fit into her com­mu­ni­ty. She doesn’t see how stunt­wom­an­ship is a career (although to be fair, nei­ther do the Oscars) and sees the arts as fruit­less pur­suit with­out sta­bil­i­ty. It is a tale too true for young Asians, even Manzoor’s par­ents orig­i­nal­ly want­ed her to become a lawyer instead of a film­mak­er. This sen­ti­ment of con­nect­ing your par­ents with your pas­sion rather than dri­ving them away can be seen in Gurinder Chad­ha​’s fil­mog­ra­phy, and out­side of this com­mu­ni­ty, in Spielberg’s glo­ri­ous The Fabel­mans. There is a dis­tinc­tive void of a YA love inter­est here, and instead Ria’s arc focus­es not just on her sis­ter­ly affec­tion, but her unbri­dled pur­suit for stunt­woman success.

With yel­low cur­sive announc­ing each new chap­ter, the titles bold­ly trans­lat­ed into Urdu and Hin­di, and in allow­ing Kansara to do as many of her own stunts as pos­si­ble, Nida Man­zoor gives brown girls their kung-fu action-com­e­dy moment. Unafraid to embrace the kooky and absurd notions that Ria man­i­fests into her life, Polite Soci­ety fol­lows up We Are Lady Parts to show­case the fresh and fun­ny humour Man­zoor has to offer British comedy.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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