![]() The two face off in the film's climactic bout, and it becomes clear during the course of that Shah vs. That sense of sisterhood even carries over into the antagonistic relationship between Rita and her mother-in-law to be. "I feel like those things don't often come together in action movies." "It was exciting to use action to talk about femininity and sisterhood," the filmmaker says. Thanks to Manzoor's genre mash-up approach, Polite Society's Matrix-style fight sequences fulfill the same function that elaborate dance numbers play in Bollywood movies - lavish spectacles that are also in tune with the dramatic and emotional stakes facing the characters. (Photo: Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection) Kansara and Ritu Arya in a scene from Polite Society. Especially as young women, there's so much visceral anger at people telling you, 'You can be this, you have to be that,' you actually do want to kick somebody! To be able to do that in the film was really fun." "Living within those restrictions and placing them against these big violences through the film was incredibly cathartic. "Particularly as Brown women, there are so many small violences that happen every day in our lives," Kansara continues, reflecting on the way the Polite Society uses action movie beats as a source of power for Rita and Lena. I also felt connected to Rita in terms of her wanting to pursue an unorthodox career and facing up to the expectations of what society places on women. "Her friends, her school life, growing up with family pressures - all of those things felt so similar to me. "There are so many similarities between my life and Rita's," the actress notes. Rita, on the other hand, isn't willing to accept that her ambitious sister is settling for the conventional life of a Muslim wife, and she launches a series of well-intentioned, but execution-challenged capers to stop the impending nuptials.īorn and raised in London's vibrant British Pakistani community, Kansara says that she felt immediate kinship with the character that Manzoor created. In that vulnerable state, she meets and falls for handsome bachelor, Salim Shah (Akshay Khanna), much to the delight of her parents and his perfect match-hunting mother, Raheela (Nimra Bucha). Her biggest fan is her elder sister, Lena (Ritu Arya), whose own career hopes are on hold after dropping out of art school. Opening in theaters on April 28 after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Polite Society stars Priya Kansara as Rita Khan, a teenage kung-fu superfan with aspirations of being a major motion picture stuntwoman. Nida Manzoor on the set of Polite Society. But I was always like, 'Nah nah nah - I'm gonna do something wild here.'" "As if the only stories about Muslim women that can be told have to have some trauma element to them. "There were certain executives who asked, 'Can you make it a white family?' or 'Can it be a forced marriage?'" Manzoor recalls. on Peacock.) Now, she's taking another turn at bat - on the big screen this time - with Polite Society, the story of two Muslim sisters that plays as a rollicking mash-up of Bollywood wedding comedies with martial arts movies, body horror yarns and even a dash of The Great Muppet Caper.Īnd once again, it's a project that British film companies initially tried to fit into a more familiar box. Manzoor's first big swing was the acclaimed Channel 4 series, We Are Lady Parts, about an all-female Muslim punk band that belted songs like "Bashir With the Good Beard" and "Voldemort Under My Headscarf." (The show is streaming in the U.S. A lot of that anger and frustration fueled by my own art - it made me swing big." I felt like, 'I'm so over this: I want to show our stories with joyfulness and nuance. "It made me angry, because my truth was never those things. "Early on in my career, I was asked to write about forced marriages and honor killings, as though those were our only narratives as Muslim women," Manzoor tells Yahoo Entertainment. But she quickly learned that she was expected to follow conventional narratives about the wives and daughters of Muslim families that were being presented on TV across the pond. ![]() television in the early-2010s, she hoped to speak for a population that had largely been overlooked by the media: young British Pakistani women like herself who proudly embraced both cultures. When writer/director Nida Manzoor broke into U.K. ![]() Priya Kansara strikes an action hero pose in Nida Manzoor's game-changing action movie Polite Society. ![]()
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