The team behind WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? in conversation with TIFF in advance of its premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. Buoyed by an ensemble including Lily James, Shazad Latif, and Emma Thompson, Shekhar Kapur’s smart, effervescent romantic comedy follows a filmmaker who decides to document her best friend’s journey toward arranged marriage.
The 47th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 8 to 18, 2022. For more, visit tiff.net.
Sliding between London and Lahore, love and friendship, tradition and iconoclasm, What’s Love Got To Do With It? is an effervescent romantic comedy that refuses to adhere to easy binaries. Directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, Bandit Queen) from a smart, worldly screenplay by Jemima Khan, the film is buoyed by an adorable ensemble that includes Lily James, Shazad Latif, and Academy Award winner Emma Thompson. Zoe (James) is a filmmaker and Kazim (Latif) a doctor. They grew up next door to each other, though their worlds couldn’t be farther apart. While Zoe was raised by her English divorcé mother, Cath (Thompson), to be independent and inquisitive, Kaz’s Pakistan-born parents were happy to participate in secular British society while ensuring their kids conduct themselves according to the family’s Muslim faith. Having already witnessed his parents’ anguish when his sister married a white Briton, Kaz has opted to follow his parents’ example and seek an arranged marriage. Kaz’s decision perplexes Zoe - and provides her with a brilliant premise for her next documentary. She sets out, camera in hand, to follow her old friend on every step of his journey toward family-vetted coupledom, trying to comprehend the enduring allure of arranged marriage while re-examining her own pattern of disastrous liaisons. Striking a rare balance between respect for custom and belief in the power of romance, What’s Love Got To Do With It? takes its title’s query to heart, posing tough questions to true believers in both camps while taking a zigzag voyage toward that magic moment where autonomy and matrimony intersect.
Shekhar Kapur was born in Lahore and grew up in Delhi. He studied economics at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, and worked in the UK before taking up acting in the early 1970s. He made his feature acting debut in the Bollywood film Jaan Hazir Hai (75). His features as director include Masoom (83); Mr. India (87); Bandit Queen (94), which won India’s National Film Award for Best Feature in Hindi; and the TIFF selections Elizabeth (98), which won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, The Four Feathers (02), and the omnibus film New York, I Love You (08). What’s Love Got To Do With It? (22) is his latest film.
11 сен 2024
