What's Love Got To Do With It

The movie stars Lily James as Zoe, a documentary filmmaker in need of a subject for her next project, and Shazad Latif as Kazim, her British Pakistani neighbour ...

Sadly there's not a lot to love here. Could she not have been a confident and unashamed young woman whose family supported her ambitions instead of having to hide them? She repeatedly questions Kazim on his decision, referring to his wife-to-be as a "stranger" he doesn't know. Peppered with scenes of happy couples sharing their own stories, whether they were assisted or ‘love' marriages, it reinforces the message that assisted unions are not the cruel or baffling concept they are sometimes perceived to be. Kazim replies that you "grow to love the person you're with". Kazim has decided that he wants to settle down and find a wife, enlisting his parents to help him secure an assisted, or arranged, marriage.

What's Love Got to Do With It? movie review: an ambitious but flawed rom-com. It's still an impressive feature debut from writer Jemima Khan. VIEW ...

Cath should be far more nutty (she has the potential to be absolutely fabulous). [Imran Khan](/topic/imran-khan)), that the jolting details creep in. Zoe and Kaz learn that Princess Diana (a good friend of Khan’s) once wanted to marry a Muslim doctor. Zoe wants to make a documentary about Kaz’s decision to have an assisted marriage (like an arranged one, but more chilled), with a “good Muslim girl”, the much-younger, Lahore-based Maymouna, (Sajal Aly). Latif had a small role in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and audiences who liked that will almost certainly like this. Zoe’s mum, Cath (Emma Thompson), is always trying to set Zoe up with suitable men.

"...a charming, thought-provoking film that benefits from a vibrant chemistry between Lily James and Shazad Latif, and strong support from Emma Thompson..."

Zoe (Lily James), a documentary filmmaker and Kaz’s next-door neighbour since they were kids, is intrigued and appalled by his choice, but Kaz is a self-proclaimed proud Muslim. The usual flirtatious banter of opposites attracting is here presented as a kind of cross-cultural dialogue, as Zoe argues in favour of Western notions of romantic love (‘a dangerous mental illness,’ according to Kaz) while refusing to partake in the traditional fairytale herself – Zoe is a self-professed Cinderella who focuses on glass ceilings rather than glass slippers. The random nature of love is enshrined in the romantic comedy as the meet-cute, that magical moment when our star-crossed lovers encounter one another for the very first time.(12A) eschews the meet-cute entirely, however; Kazim Khan (Shazad Latif) is a London-born Muslim who is perfectly happy for his parents Aisha (Shabana Azmi) and Zahid (Jeff Mirza) to arrange – or assist, to be precise – his marriage.