Polite Society Review

Nida Manzoor makes her move from television to feature films with her directional debut Polite Society. It’s one of the most creative and eclectic films of 2023, so far.

Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) is a teenage girl who wants to become a stuntwoman. She doesn’t want to fulfill cultural or gender expectations. Ria is close with her older sister, Lena (Ritu Arya), who dropped out of art school and fell into a deep depression. When Lena falls for Salim (Akshay Khanna), a good-looking geneticist, and when they become engaged Ria suspects something dodgy is going on and sets out to prove it.

Manzoor is best known for making We Are Lady Parts for Channel 4. It was a critically acclaimed series and was nominated for the Rose d’Or. Polite Society’s trailer even highlighted that it was made by the creator of We Are Lady Parts.

There was no faulting Manzoor for her ambition. She used all her experience to make Polite Society. The film was an exploration of young women from the Pakistani community who defy cultural and gender expectations, a genre-bending action film and was plotted like a kids’ film. While We Are Lady Parts was Manzoor’s most well-known project, one of her first projects was the short film Arcade where two girls play an arcade game and the violence slowly escalates. Manzoor also wrote Dixi, a family-friendly web series.

Polite Society came across as a mashup of Gurinder Chanda and Edgar Wright. Gurinder Chanda is known for making films about generational divides within South Asian films – Bend It Like Beckham and Blinded by the Light are prime examples of this. Edgar Wright has made films that film nerds drool over, like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The comparisons with Chanda’s work were obvious since Polite Society was focused on a teenager from a South Asian family who has an interest outside the cultural norm. The Khan sisters were outliers in their community because they were interested in creative subjects. When Ria told her teacher she wanted to do work experience with a stuntwoman, her teacher suggested she should shadow a doctor. People did question why Salim would be matched with an unemployed art school dropout. The Khans stood in contrast to Salam’s family: the Khans lived in a terrace house in West London, whilst Salim’s family had a mansion and were able to hold a large matchmaking party for Salim.

Polite Society did seem to start as a grounded film. The most exaggerated moment was Lena eating a chicken from a Chinese takeaway and hiding it from friends of her family. There was a relatability in the relationship between Ria and Lena like when Ria forced Lena to film some stunt videos. The film became more outlandish and elaborate as it progressed, starting with Ria’s first fight which was framed as a cross between Hong Kong martial arts films and Bollywood movies. Polite Society did go in some unexpected story directions that made the film a more surreal experience.

Polite Society’s kids’ movie attributes came in several ways. Ria’s primary mission was to break up Lena and Salim and prove Salim was not on the level. This could be the plot of a family-friendly film where someone tries to break up a couple because they didn’t like one of the pair. There were scenes that could have fitted in a family film, like Ria disguising as a man to go into a men’s changing room, Ria dictating her plans using a chalkboard, and Ria acting like a ninja so she could break into Salim’s bedroom. Ria and her friends acted a little like the girls in another Gurinder Chanda film, Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, especially their handshake routine.

The two lead actors deserve a lot of praise. Kansara and Arya look younger than they really are, and they were believable as a schoolgirl and a woman in her early 20s. Kansara impressed as Ria, acting selfish and unlikeable when she was trying to break up Lena and Salim, before becoming the action hero in the second half. From the supporting cast, Ella Bruccoleri was the standout. She looked a bit too old to play a teenager, but she made up for it by having strong comedic timing and delivering one of the best lines in the film.

Polite Society was one of the more inventive films of the year so far. It stood out as an original genre mashup in a cinematic landscape of franchises.