There is a telling moment towards the close of the latest addition to Working Title’s groaning shelf of perfectly pleasant romantic comedies. The idiot producers of the protagonist’s indie documentary – a study of an arranged marriage among the Pakistani community – belatedly express concerns about the “white lens”. It is hard to tell where the satire is directed.
Shekhar Kapur, the director of What’s Love Got to Do With It?, has an impeccable record with Hindi films such as Bandit Queen and Masoom. So maybe this is being presented as valid criticism of other work. On the other hand, the current comedy is written by Jemima Khan, born into a white British family before marrying Imran Khan, and it features a scene in which Zoe, played by Lily James, explains to Muslim characters what is and what is not wrong with arranged marriage. That last bit seemed pretty white lensy to me.
If you can put all those conflicts out of your head, What’s Love Got to Do With It? should, however, transport you happily back to the world Working Title fashioned from English cloth in the 1990s with Four Nottings and a Bridget.
Nice Zoe and nice Kaz (Shazad Latif) have grown up as pals and neighbours in a leafy corner of London. His family are gently traditional. Zoe lives with a mum who, though charming enough, does strain one’s tolerance for Emma Thompson’s wacky biddies (for it is she, and she deserves better). When Kaz, a doctor, announces he is going in for an arranged marriage, Zoe – who just, you know, can’t keep a man! – suggests turning the story into a film.
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Khan, like her documentarist heroine, clearly seeks to offer a balanced take on arranged marriage – opening non-Muslim viewers up to their own prejudices while admitting the restrictions. That balance proves, however, difficult to sustain in a genre that relies on a desperate, final rush to the airport (or whatever) as soul mates admit their attraction.
The two leads prove up to that challenge. Latif, sometime Clem Fandango from Toast of London, plays a straight bat to James’s unpredictable incoming googlies. The scenery is lovely. The female lead gets to wear the sort of nice big coats we always find in Working Title winters. And the script retains a bite throughout. “British-born” is, Kaz explains, code for non-white. Ouch!
