What’s Love Got to Do with It? A movie review by Alex First
Jemima Khan, the former wife of Pakistani cricket captain and politician Imran Khan, has written a cross-cultural romantic comedy.
Zoe (Lily James) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose choices in men have been less than satisfactory.
She is best mates with oncology registrar Kazim (Shazad Latif), whose Pakistani family lives next door to her flamboyant divorced mother Cath (Emma Thompson).
Zoe and Kazim even sneak off together to the treehouse in his backyard, where he enjoys a forbidden smoke.
Although clearly there is a closeness between them, save for his first kiss when they were both kids, romantically they haven’t connected.
And then, one day, he announces to her that he will enter an arranged marriage, in more modern parlance termed “an assisted” marriage.
While taken aback, Kazim cites to Zoe the divorce rate in Britain (55%), compared with that from arranged unions (6%).
Zoe is unsuccessfully pitching her latest documentary idea to disinterested producers when she puts to them the concept of “love contractually”.
Suddenly, they are onboard. Now the only obstacle that remains is convincing Kazim to be allowed to record his every move on his journey to wedded bliss.
So, it is that Zoe films Kazim and members of his family, including his parents, brother, sister and grandmother.
Zoe is there when Kazim and his folks meet with a cultural consultant, Mo the Matchmaker (Asim Chaudhry).
She records his first internet visual “hook up” with young, Lahore-based law student Maymouna (Sajal Ali).
Very quickly, that initial meeting results in engagement and then a trip to Pakistan for the three-day wedding.
But try as Kazim and Maymouna do for the sake of family, all is not right.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is well written and performed.
It is in the same wheelhouse My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and Mamma Mia! (2008).
I also reference The Big Sick (2017), the cross-cultural love affair between a Pakistani and an American.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is warm, respectful and often very funny.
Lily James is charming as Zoe and Shazad Latif is the epitome of dignified as Kazim.
I also appreciated the roles of Shabana Azmi as Kazim’s mum, Aisha and Jeff Mirza as his father, Zahid.
Clearly proud of their son, Aisha and Zahid remain keen to maintain tradition.
And now we come to the scene stealers.
In a movie that is already extremely colourful (the wedding scenes in Pakistan are a cavalcade of colour and finery), Emma Thompson splashes out.
She immerses herself into a larger-than-life persona with wanton abandon.
She is loud and hardly tactful as Zoe’s mum, who wants her daughter to find Mr Right.
She is given many choice lines and doesn’t waste any of them.
Neither does the poker-faced Pakiza Baig, who is cast as Zahid’s “tell it like it is” grandmother, Nani Jan. The family matriarch is a hoot whenever she is captured on film.
In the director’s chair is Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age), who ensures the film has a playful quality while not eschewing pathos.
An easy watch, What’s Love Got to Do with It? is feel-good entertainment that should attract an appreciative audience.
Rated M, it scores a 7½ out of 10. Run time 109 minutes
