A tribute to sisterhood, particularly sisterhood among children of immigrants, Polite Society blends the emotional journey of the March sisters from Little Women, the climate of Bend It Like Beckham, the attitude of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World with social anxieties that speak to audiences in 2023. Drawing inspiration from Bollywood films of her youth and Quentin Tarantino action sequences, this is the first film written and directed by Nida Manzoor, creator of the acclaimed British TV show We Are Lady Parts, which follows an all-Muslim, all-girl punk rock band.
Polite Society follows the story of Ria (Priya Kansara), a high schooler living in London who dreams of becoming a stunt double. Her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) has dropped out of art school, listlessly passing time in dirty sweats trying to paint and helping Ria film stunts for her YouTube channel.
While attending a high-end Eid party thrown by their mother's obscenely wealthy friend Raheela (Nimra Bucha), Lena meets Raheela's son Salim (Akshay Khanna). Lena begins to date the successful doctor and slowly gives up any attempt at art or going back to school. Ria is unsettled by the change in her sister and tries to persuade Lena into forgetting about her seemingly perfect boyfriend, but is wildly unsuccessful. Lena and Salim are quickly engaged and (after several schemes to break up the engagement) Lena and Ria have a falling out when Ria sneaks into Salim and Raheela's home attempting to plant condoms filled to the brim with lotion around his room. In the ultimate blow, Lena tells Ria that she's given up her art because she isn't good enough to be a painter and that Ria will never be a stuntwoman.
The next day, Ria returns to the home with a small gift and an apology. Raheela invites her in for an in-home spa day, complete with manicures, massages, and a torturous leg-waxing session. After breaking free from the henchmen/estheticians, Ria runs through the house trying to escape Raheela, ultimately finding a secret lab in the basement where she learns that Salim has been conducting fertility experiments on Lena and the Eid party was essentially a hunting ground for the strongest womb.
No one believes her about the secret lab, so Ria is forced into recruiting her friends and the school bully into helping her kidnap her sister on the day of the wedding. The plan almost goes off without a hitch but Raheela is onto Ria's plans. During their one-on-one fight, Raheela bemoans the state of the world, claiming that girls today don't appreciate their freedoms. To Ria's horror, she reveals that the real purpose of the wedding is to give her another chance at life via a clone that her son will insert into Lena's incredibly strong womb without her knowledge.
Raheela overtakes Ria and forces her friends to bring Lena back, locking the girls in the bridal suite as the wedding starts. The school bully busts them out and Ria interrupts the wedding, helping Lena escape the hall. Chaos ensues as wedding guests attempt to catch Lena and bring her back. After one final confrontation that leaves Salim and Raheela clinging to each other in the street, Lena and Ria ride off into London, making one final video for Ria's YouTube.
The heart of this movie is the relationship between Ria and Lena, which is superbly crafted in the script and acted to the nines by Kansara and Arya. Ria and Lena are simultaneously each other's fiercest supporters and most scathing critics. Sisterhood, in this world, isn't sugar-coated but also can't be torn apart by anyone. In reflecting each other's strengths and weaknesses, Ria and Lena also illustrate the push and pull of success and failure. Ria champions her sister when no one else will, supporting her art while also raising the stakes for Lena should she fail. It's hard to disappoint people who have no expectations of you.
The most brutal fight of the whole film is between the two sisters after Lena confronts Ria for meddling in her relationship, and culminates in the destruction of their bedrooms and a significant portion of the second floor of their house. It's gutting and brutal, with Lena smashing a mirror using only Ria's head before breaking through a door using only Ria's body, while Ria bites down hard on Lena's arm. A framed picture of the two of them is crushed in the chaos and both girls are left bloodied, their relationship splintering.
The sheer brutality of the fight hammers home the cutthroat dynamic between the girls where no one can hurt them more than they can hurt each other. It also helps keep the film a little off-kilter. Ria's insistence that there is something wrong with Salim seems a little over-inflated for the film's first half (maybe more). He is generic and definitely opposite to Lena's artistic lifestyle, but that's not inherently villainous. Instead, Ria's focus on him sort of rings a little childish, like Jo March insisting Meg cannot marry Mr. Brooks because it will end their childhood. This fight, along with the cleverly constructed first few sections of the film, have you questioning Ria's perceptions.
Obviously, the girls did not actually fight that hard, if at all (neither have any physical wounds in the scenes immediately following the fight), but we understand that to Ria their fight was that violent. However, the artistic choice here, and elsewhere such as when Salim looks up to Ria in the window in a way that she (and we) perceive to be threatening, create a narrative that has you second-guessing what's real and what is Ria's over-production.
I like that kind of narrative, so it definitely worked for me.
There are no simple answers in this narrative either, which also worked for me. The antagonist is a woman who is looking to live life over again in a more feminist society and is simultaneously a dreaded "boy mom" to her core. When Raheela reveals her plans, she tells Ria of her struggle to succeed in a society that was so against women and bemoans that the women of this younger generation don't appreciate the freedoms they are given. Her plight is at least a little understandable, which makes her a far more complex character.
What is not understandable is her view that younger women are disposable vessels for her own desires. It's a particularly gruesome reveal. While the audience is predisposed to believe her son is the mastermind behind whatever sick scheme Lena is falling into, it's a deeper twist of the knife to learn that another woman has orchestrated this complete breach of reproductive rights. Yet--and perhaps this is where the genius of Polite Society lies--this revelation is not shocking! How can it be, when Raheela has been nothing but saccharinely a "boy mom" of the worst variety? For those unaware, the term "boy mom" has been recently christened by the internet to refer to women who make being the mom to boys their entire personality and is defined by Urban Dictionary as "A mom who is emotionally incestuous with her sons." Another big characteristic of the "boy mom" is adherence to patriarchy where boys are valued more than girls and an ever-present, often vocal, distaste for girls in favor of boys--especially their boys.
Raheela, though, takes "boy mom" and "emotional incest" to a new level, literally using her son to create a baby. Interestingly, Salim's father is never present or mentioned, further reiterating the twisted dynamic Raheela and Salim have cultivated. Young feminists, especially on TikTok, have been very vocal about the "boy mom" phenomena and the ways in which this deep-rooted internalized misogyny affects them in their own families and in the families of the men they date and marry. I found it deeply fascinating to see this specific brand of misogyny make its way into Hollywood, in no small part because it seems to be identified and named almost exclusively by women. I'm not sure a man (at least at this moment) could write such a portrayal of the dreaded "boy mom" that is so convincing despite the over-the-top villain status.
Overall, there is careful attention given to full circle moments that made for a satisfying, deeply-pitched narrative. The movie opens with Ria attempting a flying roundhouse kick (no, I don't know if that is the technical term for it). She falls over and over again every time she tries throughout the story before eventually giving up her dreams of being a real stuntwoman. Likewise, she returns throughout the film to the idea of interning with real-life stuntwoman Eunice Huthart and is increasingly distraught when Eunice does not respond to her emails. After giving up on being a stuntwoman, Ria writes one final email to Eunice calling it quits. In the eleventh hour, as the girls confront Raheela and Salim, Ria successfully pulls off the flying roundhouse kick and neutralizes Raheela. Giddy at their escape, and with a lit-up London in the background, they film for Ria's YouTube channel and show off the new skill. They also grab a bite to eat and Ria finally gets an email back from Eunice. Another full circle arc happens with the school bully Kovacs who initially battles Ria at every chance. After some bonding over shared family struggles, Kovacs actually rescues Ria and her friends at the wedding in enough time to save Lena and provides the getaway car.
Visually, the film is rich with a rich use of color and a style that occasionally dipped into a mix of Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Ria's inner world is mapped on the physical, immersing the viewer into her story and viewpoint. The genre-blending extends into the visuals and I really enjoyed the Bollywood-inspired use of dance as a plot device intermingled with the thrilling climax of the movie.
Priya Kansara is completely believable as the young protagonist. She roots Ria with desires and love and insecurities, building a well-rounded character in the process. Ritu Arya captures the vibe of the cool older sister and a floundering young adult with distinction. I hope to see both of them in more going forward. Nimra Bucha was a thunderous presence on the screen and drove the movie everywhere it needed to go. I hope she's the next Bond villain. Akshay Khanna was perfectly bland as Salim, which I believe was the intention (similar to Bo Burnham's character in Promising Young Woman). He didn't tip his hand one way or the other, using meticulous precision to establish the nice-young-man veneer. The supporting cast was eccentric in a pleasant, quintessentially British way, building unique characters that stood out from each other as they populated the world.
Overall
4.5 stars out of 5.
End Credits: 2/5
Pretty standard generic text on a black screen, although I did appreciate at the text was in the same yellow as all the chapter titles featured throughout the film. The loud rock music continued for the entire time, keeping the atmosphere of the film alive. Definitely could have done something more immersive, like maybe including unseen clips from Ria's YouTube channel or bespoke-looking animations that echoed the graphics of the chapter titles.
Soundtrack: 4/5
The soundtrack covered a variety of genres, helping bridge the genre-bending seamlessly. The score is composed by Tom Howe and Shez Manzoor.
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