What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Yeah, It’s a Formulaic Rom Com. Got a Problem with That?
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B
The modern rom com follows a specific formula.
We know from the first five minutes that the couple we’ve just met are perfect for each other even if they don’t and that they’ll have to spend the next hour or two of screen time figuring that out. And then there’s the British rom com, which has its own tone and flavour, notably a supporting cast of quirky characters.
Even though we know the tropes, pulling off a successful rom com isn’t easy. But when it works, it’s a wonderful, spirit-lifting, even life-affirming thing.
The British rom com What’s Love Got to Do With It? follows the formula, arguably to a maddening and distracting degree. Perhaps to its credit, the film doesn’t even pretend otherwise. In an early scene it acknowledges the formula by naming a few rom coms it nods to (When Harry Met Sally, Love Actually, Meet the Parents) The self awareness and little wink at the audience is cute, but that slavishness to “the formula” is its weak spot.
On the other hand, thanks to its cross-cultural mix, appealing lead cast, and some great locations, the movie is engaging and entertaining. It also manages to deal with some more complex questions about love, culture, identity, family, and community without losing its lightness.
What’s Love Got to Do With It is set in London, where Zoe Stevenson (Lily James) and Kazim ‘Kaz’ Khan (Shazad Latif) — now both in their early 30s — grew up next door to each other and were close pals. Zoe is now an award-winning documentarian with her own place. Her extroverted and chatty mother Cath (Emma Thompson) still lives next door to the Khans.
The Khans: mom Aisha (Shabana Azmi) and dad Zahid (Jeff Mirza) are Pakistani Muslims who moved to London and started their family. Kaz is a doctor and still lives at home. As does his older brother Farooq (Mim Sheikh), his sister-in-law Yasmin (Man Boujelouah), and their grandmother (Pakiza Baig).
It’s a joyful home, but not without its dramas. Younger sister Jamila (Mariam Haque) does not live with the family, nor is she at family gatherings. And that includes the wedding of Farooq and Yasmin, which takes place at the Khan’s home.
Zoe arrives late and finds Kaz sneaking a cigarette in the backyard tree house where the two have hung together out since they were kids. As they’re catching up, Kaz takes Zoe by surprise when he announces that he’s giving up on the merry-go-round of dating. He has decided to follow family tradition and go for an arranged marriage, or rather its modern version, an “assisted” marriage. She wonders about where love fits into that, and he wonders if love even has a place in what makes a marriage work.
Read our interview with the writer and star of What’s Love Got to Do With It?
The next day, Zoe goes to a meeting with a pair of slick young producers to pitch her latest documentary ideas. When they reject her ideas as too serious and say they’re looking for feel-good stories, she suggests doing a documentary on assisted marriage in “modern multicultural Britain” following Kaz and his family as they search for his bride. They say yes. And incredibly, and somewhat unbelievably after much bargaining, so does Kaz.
And so, Zoe, camera in hand, begins to film as the Khans start to look for a bride for Kaz. She follows as they take him to a meeting with Mo the Matchmaker (Asim Chaudhry), and then to an evening where Mo has brought together eligible Muslim men and women to meet and mingle. For Kaz, nothing seems to stick.
His parents have also been working the phones and have scoped out a young woman they think is worth everyone’s time. Maymouna (Sajal Ali) is a quiet, very beautiful young woman who lives in Lahore and whose parents are also looking for a match for her. An online meeting is arranged, with everyone present of course, and Zoe filming.
Although she says the right things and is studying to be a lawyer, Maymouna is strangely restrained, and formal to the point of being almost lifeless. Kaz has been hoping to find a woman he clicks with and, from what we see, that’s not happening.
For her part, Zoe continues to date, generally hooking up with men who are unsuitable. She watches a close friend go through marital woes, which further erodes her sense of confidence in finding the right person. And then Cath introduces her to young, single, attractive veterinarian James (Oliver Chris), who seems like a great match.
But before they can really get to know each other, Kaz announces that he and Maymouna have spent the month talking and getting to know each other and are now engaged. Things now move quickly. The Khans, and Zoe and her mom, are off to Lahore for the wedding.
Zoe, of course, is still working on the documentary about Kaz. All along, she’s been filming, doing interviews with Kaz, talking to him about his ideas about love and marriage, or trying to coax him to talk about these things. She challenges him. He challenges her. And of course, through this she’s really looking at him, and therefore at herself. There are surprises ahead, y’all.
This is the first screenplay by Jemima Khan, a well-established independent executive producer who has worked in multiple genres: documentary (As Far As They Can Run), TV (Impeachment: American Crime Story) and film (Joyland). She knows about what appeals to audiences, and also is clearly aware of how the rom-com formula works and has stuck to it with her own spin.
Director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, Science of Compassion) keeps the overall tone light if sometimes a bit melodramatic. He has cast well and relies on his lead actors to inhabit the emotional contradictions, worries and changes that their characters are experiencing, which both do beautifully.
So, yeah, the movie does noticeably follow the formula. But still, it got to me. I rooted for the couple who didn't yet know what we knew from the beginning, and I even welled up towards the end, just when the film wanted me to. Predictable reaction. But then, it’s a rom com after all.
What’s Love Got To Do With It? Directed by Shekhar Kapur. Written by Jemima Khan. Starring Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Sajal Ali, Shabana Azmi, and Jeff Mirza. In theatres May 19.