1h 43m / PG-13 / Comedy, Adventure
In London, British-Pakistani teenager Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) aspires to become a movie stuntwoman. Under an alter-ego, "The Fury," Ria creates films of martial arts training with the help of her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya), who has dropped out of art school. Lena skulks around like a raccoon, wild eyes smudged with dark liner, devouring a whole roast chicken barehanded on the sidewalk. She’s a mess and quite possibly depressed. But to her younger sister, Lena is perfect — until Lena falls in love with a wealthy doctor named Salim (Akshay Khanna) and instantly transforms from a hoodie-wearing slob into a cardigan-clad fiancée. Believing she must save her older sister from her impending marriage, Ria enlists the help of her friends to spy on Salim and attempt an ambitious (and surprisingly combat-focused) wedding heist in the name of independence, righteousness and sisterhood.
Here at Tampa Theatre, we applaud with mad fascination the Everything-Everywhere-ization of all genres of film, and the riotously funny and action-packed Polite Society is exactly the sort of category-defying work we mean. It’s a delight that borrows from everything — westerns, musicals, heist capers, horror, from Little Women and Bridesmaids to Scott Pilgrim and Kung-Fu Hustle — in building its writer and director, Nida Manzoor, into a promising new role: a first-time filmmaker impatient to evolve cultural representation from the last few years of self-conscious vitamins into crowd-pleasing candy. At its core, it’s about the power of supportive sisters, but it goes on to critique the limitations of cultural, generational, and gendered expectations all between well-choreographed high kicks and punches. And most importantly, it’s a darn good time at the movies.
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