Polite Society (film)

Last updated

Polite Society
PoliteSocietyPoster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Nida Manzoor
Written byNida Manzoor
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Ashley Connor
Edited byRobbie Morrison
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed by Focus Features (United States)
Universal Pictures [1] [2] (international)
Release dates
  • 21 January 2023 (2023-01-21)(Sundance)
  • 28 April 2023 (2023-04-28)(United Kingdom)
Running time
104 minutes [1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2.7 million [3] [4]

Polite Society is a 2023 British martial arts action comedy film written and directed by Nida Manzoor (in her feature film directorial debut). The film stars Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri, Shona Babayemi, Shobu Kapoor, and Jeff Mirza.

Contents

The film follows teenager Ria Khan, who struggles to save her older sister, Lena, after she decides to give up on her dreams and get married.

Polite Society had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2023, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 28 April 2023 by Focus Features. The film received favourable reviews from critics.

Plot

In London, British-Pakistani teenager Ria Khan aspires to become a movie stunt performer like her idol, Eunice Huthart. Under an alter ego, "the Fury", Ria creates films of martial arts training with the help of her older sister, Lena, who has dropped out of art school and moved back in with their loving but traditional parents, Fatima and Rafe, both of them discouraging Ria's dreams.

At school, Ria is inseparable from her friends Clara and Alba, but their disapproving teacher urges her to pursue a more "serious" career. Ria's emails to Eunice about a potential mentorship go unanswered, and she is soundly defeated by the school bully Kovacs. The Khan family is invited to an Eid soirée by Raheela, the leader of Fatima's social circle of Pakistani mothers, at her lavish mansion. Ria realizes the party has been arranged to find a suitable match for Raheela's son Salim, a successful geneticist, but is unable to stop Lena from agreeing to a date.

To Ria's horror, Lena is charmed by Salim and, after a few whirlwind weeks of dating, agrees to marry him and move to Singapore. Despite their parents' support, Ria's refusal to accept Lena's choices, including abandoning her art career, drives the sisters apart. Convinced there must be a more sinister explanation, Ria enlists Clara and Alba's help to spy on Salim. They concoct an elaborate plan to steal his laptop, and Ria distracts him while her friends hack his computer, but they find nothing incriminating.

Desperate to sabotage Lena's relationship, Ria lashes out at her friends, and breaks into Salim's bedroom to plant used condoms. She is caught, and confronts Salim with a lovey-dovey picture showing him together with a pretty girl, whom he explains is his first wife who died in childbirth. Furious, Lena berates Ria, telling her to give up the fantasies that she will change her mind about the marriage or that Ria will ever become a stuntwoman.

At odds with her sister and ignored by her friends, Ria gives up martial arts. She visits Raheela to apologize and is dragged into joining her spa day, where Raheela reveals her true colors and tortures Ria with waxing. Fighting off Raheela's staff, Ria stumbles into the mansion's secret lab and discovers that all the eligible women at the Eid party were secretly scanned and tested, and Lena was selected for her fertility and strong uterus.

Escaping back home, Ria realizes she cannot convince her family of the truth. She tells Clara and Alba, and together they devise a plan, persuading Kovacs to drive them to the wedding to rescue Lena. Ria distracts the guests with a spectacular Filmi (Bollywood-style) dance ("Maar Dala") while Clara and Alba, disguised as waiters, sneak past the armed guard at Lena's door. They chloroform Lena and hide her inside a tea trolley, but Raheela captures Ria, and reveals she and Salim plan to impregnate Lena with a clone of Raheela.

Forced to return Lena, the friends are locked in the bridal suite as the wedding begins, but Kovacs comes to their rescue and subdues the guard. Taking his gun, Ria holds Raheela at gunpoint and exposes her plan, leading Lena to remember being drugged and tested by Salim, who admits that his first wife died carrying his mother’s clone. Raheela seizes the gun but is disarmed by Fatima, as Ria’s family and friends fight off the guests.

Lena subdues Salim while Ria finally masters a reverse spinning kick to defeat Raheela, and the police arrive as the sisters drive off. Reconciling with Lena, Ria finally receives an encouraging email from Eunice, and the sisters celebrate together.

Cast

Production

In January 2022, it was revealed that director Nida Manzoor was working on a feminist martial arts action/comedy film focussing on two privately educated British-Pakistani sisters in London. The film is by Working Title, Focus Features and Parkville Pictures, and has a tone and voice similar to Manzoor’s breakthrough and BAFTA, Peabody, and Rose d'Or award winning sitcom series We Are Lady Parts . [5]

In February 2022 it was announced that filming had wrapped on the project in London. It is produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner for Working Title with Olivier Kaempfer and John Pocock for Parkville Pictures. Focus Features had distribution rights. [2] [6] [7]

The typography & graphic design for the title card, credits, chapter headings and fight sequence introductions was designed by Peter Anderson Studio. [8]

Genre and influences

While the structure of Polite Society does not adhere to a specific genre throughout, Manzoor has described portions of it as "a joyful kung fu Bollywood epic." [9] Mansoor also drew from spaghetti westerns, All About Eve, Hong Kong kung-fu films, and the work of Yuen Woo-ping. [9] Additional influences include the 2002 version of Devdas (Ria's dances to Maar Dala at the wedding), [10] the novels of Jane Austen, [11] Jackie Chan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Get Out , Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino), Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, and The Slums of Beverly Hills . [12]

Release

Polite Society was released at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2023, [13] at the 2023 Glasgow Film Festival on 12 March 2023, [14] and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 28 April 2023. [15] [16]

Reception

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 158 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critics' consensus reads, "Polite Society throws, kicks, and punches the genre etiquette book out the window to deliver a fun film that blends Bollywood splendor and British wryness." [17] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [18]

Robbie Collin in the Daily Telegraph described it as “rollicking” and “crafty and fresh” and “all done with infectious pep”, with “the fights themselves – witty, lucid, crunchy, slick” and Kansara a “blatant star-in-the-making”. [19]

BBC Culture's Mohammad Zaheer gave it four stars and wrote that the film was "an action-packed, genre-blending delight that fires on all cylinders" and that "[e]verything – from the writing to the cinematography, the performances, the choreography and the soundtrack – is on point, and it has all the requisite ingredients to be an exhilarating experience for audiences that come along for the ride." He also praised the lack of stereotypes regarding Lena's engagement to Salim. [20]

In The Guardian , Peter Bradshaw mentioned Manzoor as one of the best debuts in film in 2023. [21]

Accolades

Manzoor won in the Best Debut Screenwriter category at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards. [22] Also nominated were Priya Kansara in the Breakthrough Performance category, Ritu Arya for Best Supporting Performance, Claire Carter for Best Hair & Make Up, and Paddy Eason for Best Effects. [23]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Zanjeer</i> (1973 film) 1973 film by Prakash Mehra

Zanjeer (transl. Shackles) is a 1973 Indian Hindi-language action crime film directed and produced by Prakash Mehra from a screenplay written by Salim–Javed. It stars Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Pran, Ajit Khan and Bindu. At a time when India was suffering from exceptional corruption and low economic growth and the common man was left with frustration and anger over the system, Zanjeer began shifting Hindi cinema in a violent and aggressive direction. The film also ended the struggling period for Bachchan, which turned him into a rising star. It was a blockbuster success domestically in India and overseas in the Soviet Union.

<i>Sarfarosh</i> 1999 film directed by John Matthew Matthan

Sarfarosh (transl. Fervent) is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film written, produced and directed by John Matthew Matthan and starring Naseeruddin Shah, Aamir Khan, Sonali Bendre and Mukesh Rishi. John started working on Sarfarosh in 1992. Seven years were spent on the research, pre-production and production till it finally released in 1999. The film deals with an Indian police officer's quest to stop cross-border terrorism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sohail Khan</span> Indian film actor (born 1969)

Sohail Salim Abdul Rashid Khan is an Indian actor, writer, film director and producer who works mainly in Hindi cinema. He is the younger brother of actors Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan. He has an elder sister, Alvira Khan Agnihotri. He produces films under his banner Sohail Khan Productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salim Khan</span> Indian actor and screenwriter (born 1935)

Salim Abdul Rashid Khan is an Indian actor, film producer and screenwriter. He wrote the screenplays, stories and scripts for numerous Bollywood films. Khan is one half of the prolific screenwriting duo of Salim–Javed, along with Javed Akhtar. The duo were among the first Indian screenwriters to achieve star status in Hindi cinema, and became the most successful Indian screenwriters of all time. While working together, Salim Khan was largely responsible for developing the stories and characters, whereas Javed Akhtar was largely responsible for developing the dialogues.

<i>Fanaa</i> (2006 film) 2006 Indian film directed by Kunal Kohli

Fanaa (transl. Annihilation) is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language tragedy romantic thriller film, directed by Kunal Kohli and produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra under their banner Yash Raj Films. The film stars Aamir Khan and Kajol in the lead roles with Rishi Kapoor, Kirron Kher, Tabu, and Sharat Saxena in supporting roles. The film is about Zooni, a blind Kashmiri woman, who falls in love with her tour guide Rehan, a terrorist in disguise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatima Jinnah</span> Pakistani stateswoman, biographer and dental surgeon (1893-1967)

Fatima Jinnah was a Pakistani politician and stateswoman. She was the younger sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and the first governor-general of Pakistan. She was the Leader of the Opposition of Pakistan from 1960 until her death in 1967.

Shobu Kapoor is an Indian British actress. She is most notable for playing the role of Gita Kapoor, the long-suffering wife of market trader Sanjay, in the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 1993 to 1998.

Salim Ghouse was an Indian film, television and theatre actor, theatre director, and martial artist. He has acted in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English films.

<i>Jodha Akbar</i> Indian television series

Jodha Akbar is an Indian Historical drama television series that aired from 18 June 2013 to 7 August 2015 on Zee TV, also digitally available on ZEE5. The show was produced by Ekta Kapoor under Balaji Telefilms. Starring Rajat Tokas and Paridhi Sharma, critics have praised the series for its acting performances, scope, soundtrack and production values. It replaced Rab Se Sohna Isshq and was replaced by Tashan-e-Ishq in its timeslot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvira Khan Agnihotri</span> Indian film producer

Alvira Khan Agnihotri is an Indian film producer and fashion designer. In 2016, she received a Stardust Award for Best Costume Design for her work on Sultan. She is the daughter of dialogue writer and producer Salim Khan and sister of actors Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan and Sohail Khan.

<i>Saaya</i> (season 1) Pakistani television drama series

Saaya is a 2018 Pakistani horror drama television series directed by Syed Muhammad Khurram, produced by Babar Javed and written by Wajeeha Sahar. The drama stars Maham Amir, Sohail Sameer and Kiran Tabeer in lead roles, and premiered on Geo Entertainment. The theme of the series is karma.

<i>Tich Button</i> 2022 film directed by Qasim Ali Mureed

Tich Button is a 2022 Pakistani comedy drama film, directed by Qasim Ali Mureed in his feature film directorial debut and produced by Salman Iqbal and Urwa Hocane in her debut production. It stars Farhan Saeed, Iman Ali, Feroze Khan and Sonya Hussyn. The film is released on 25 November 2022.

<i>Badbakht</i> Pakistani television show

Bad Bakht (transl. Unlucky) is a Pakistani family drama premiered on ARY Zindagi on 26 March 2018. It is produced by Fahad Mustafa under their banner Big Bang Entertainment. It stars Sabeena Syed and Fahad Shaikh in leads.

<i>We Are Lady Parts</i> British sitcom

We Are Lady Parts is a British television sitcom created, written, and directed by Nida Manzoor. The series follows a British punk rock band named Lady Parts, which consists entirely of Muslim women.

Nida Manzoor is a British writer and director. She is best known creating the Peacock/Channel 4 comedy show We Are Lady Parts, for which she won the 2021 Rose d'Or Emerging Talent Award and the 2022 BAFTA for TV Comedy Screenwriting. She released her debut feature film Polite Society in 2023 which earned her the 2023 BIFA for Debut Screenwriting.

<i>Pardes</i> (2021 TV series) Pakistani drama serial

Pardes is a Pakistani drama serial directed by Marina Khan and written by Sarwat Nazir. It stars Bushra Ansari, Sarmad Khoosat, Shaista Lodhi, Affan Waheed and Dur-e-Fishan Saleem in prominent roles. Produced by Humayun Saeed and Shehzad Naseeb under Six Sigma Plus, the serial airs double episodes weekly on ARY Digital. The story of the serial revolves around a man who goes abroad to earn livelihood which affects his relationships and especially the lives of his children.

<i>Zindagi Mere Ghar Aana</i> Indian television series

Zindagi Mere Ghar Aana is an Indian television drama series that premiered on 26 July 2021 on StarPlus and it is digitally available on Disney+ Hotstar. Produced by Qissago Telefilms LLP, it starred Hasan Zaidi and Esha Kansara. The series ended on 1 January 2022. it was replaced by Kabhi Kabhie Ittefaq Sey in its timeslot.

Priya Uday Kansara is a British actress. After making her debut with appearances the Netflix series Bridgerton and The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself, she starred in the Nida Manzoor film Polite Society (2023).

Akshay Khanna is a British actor. His films include Red, White & Royal Blue and Polite Society. On television, he is known for his roles in the BBC One series Chloe (2022) and the Paramount+ series The Doll Factory (2023).

References

  1. 1 2 "Polite Society (12A)". BBFC . Archived from the original on 29 April 2023. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
  2. 1 2 Grater, Tom (15 February 2022). "'We Are Lady Parts' Creator Nida Manzoor Helming Feature Debut 'Polite Society' For Working Title & Focus". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  3. ↑ "Polite Society (2023)". Box Office Mojo . Archived from the original on 29 April 2023. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
  4. ↑ "Polite Society (2023) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on 29 April 2023. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
  5. ↑ Richardson, Jay (25 January 2022). "Nida Manzoor shoots her first film". British Comedy Guide . Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  6. ↑ Kay, Jeremy (15 February 2022). "Production wraps on Nida Manzoor's 'Polite Society' for Focus, Working Title, Parkville". Screen Daily . Archived from the original on 24 January 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  7. ↑ Gularte, Alejandra (15 February 2022). "We Are Lady Parts Creator Nida Manzoor to Direct Feature Film Polite Society". Vulture.com . Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  8. ↑ "Polite Society". BFI Southbank Programme Notes. 21 April 2023. Archived from the original on 29 June 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  9. 1 2 Sanders, Sam (2 May 2023). "Polite Society Depicts Sister Fights As They Are: 'Brutal, Violent, and Hideous'". Vulture . Archived from the original on 13 August 2023.
  10. ↑ Seth, Radhika (4 May 2023). "'Polite Society' Is The Sequin-Strewn Kung-Fu Romp You Never Knew You Needed". British Vogue. Archived from the original on 27 August 2023.
  11. ↑ ""Polite Society" Writer/Director Nida Manzoor on Her Genre-Melding Feature Debut". Motion Picture Association. 28 April 2023. Archived from the original on 13 August 2023.
  12. ↑ Yohannes, Alamin (28 April 2023). "How Jackie Chan and a 'Kill Bill' fight influenced Nida Manzoor's 'Polite Society'". EW.com. Archived from the original on 13 August 2023.
  13. ↑ "Polite Society". Sundance Film Festival . Archived from the original on 21 January 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  14. ↑ "Full Festival Programme". Glasgow Film Festival . Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  15. ↑ Grobar, Matt (1 November 2022). "'Polite Society' Release Date: 'We Are Lady Parts' Creator Nida Manzoor Makes Feature Directorial Debut With Action-Comedy For Focus Features". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  16. ↑ McClintock, Pamela (2 November 2022). "Nida Manzoor Movie 'Polite Society' Lands Late April 2023 Release". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  17. ↑ "Polite Society". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media. Archived from the original on 24 January 2023. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  18. ↑ "Polite Society Reviews". Metacritic . Fandom, Inc. Archived from the original on 30 April 2023. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  19. ↑ Collin, Robbie (12 March 2023). "Polite Society, review: martial arts meets The Beano in Nida Manzoor's superb film debut". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  20. ↑ Zaheer, Mohammad (24 April 2023). "Polite Society review: This explosive, action-packed delight recalls Scott Pilgrim, Kill Bill, Get Out and The Matrix". BBC Online . Archived from the original on 11 July 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2023.
  21. ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (22 December 2023). "And the 2023 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw's film picks of the year". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 December 2023. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
  22. ↑ Ntim, Zac (3 December 2023). "British Independent Film Awards: 'All Of Us Strangers' Sweeps With 7 Wins Including Best Film". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  23. ↑ Ramachandran, Naman (2 November 2023). "Jodie Comer, Paul Mescal Score Nods as 'Rye Lane,' 'Scrapper, 'All of Us Strangers' Lead British Independent Film Awards Nominations". Variety. Archived from the original on 2 November 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.