Polite Society - Review Thread

When Polite Society came out it was accompanied by a trailer that was trying really hard to make the film look like the South Asian equivalent of Everything Everywhere All At Once but as it turns out the closer comparison might have been Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, at least in terms of surface level style. It follows a British-Pakistani teen girl who begins to suspect that her older sister’s fiancé is not on the level and may be conspiring to some sort of evil ends. That central scheme she’s fighting could have the makings of being a paranoid horror film along the lines of The Stepford Wives or Get Out but the film mostly takes a more lighthearted approach providing a sort of romp for the protagonist to take down. The film was in some ways sort of beaten to the punch by Marvel of all companies as their “Ms. Marvel” miniseries is similarly a girl’s coming of age adventure set in a Pakistani diaspora community styled in a way that’s heavily indebted to Edgar Wright and the two projects even share a cast member (Nimra Bucha) in a not dissimilar role. That maybe takes a bit away from the hyper-creative feel that the movie was going for and it’s more generally probably a touch overly indebted to its inspirations, but it does make up for this just by having a pretty solid cast of likable performers and a certain amount of charm that carries it. In some ways this feels like it might have been better served as a pilot for a TV series as it left me liking the characters and tone and maybe wanting more but not entirely satisfied with the film as a cinematic statement unto itself.