Worth: $13.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Asim Chaudry, Jeff Mizra, Jeff Mizra, Oliver Chris, Sajal Aly, Ben Ashenden, Alexander Owen
Intro:
... promises more fire than it can ultimately deliver.
With the theatrical release schedule returning to (relative) normalcy, there’s a certain mundane comfort to be had out of big-screen rom-coms making a resurgence. The sex-positivity of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, the Queerness-with-a-capital-Q of Bros, the adventure hijinks of The Lost City, the almost-classical star power of Ticket to Paradise, even the romantic-flavoured trappings of Thor: Love and Thunder; be it ever so humble, that familiarity can feel like a nice warm hug.
But then again, those films (mostly) worked because they were upfront about being simple love fluff, knowing that audiences are perfectly fine with that, and were themselves up to the task of providing straight-forward entertainment. What’s Love Got To Do With It?, on the other hand, seems uncomfortable with settling for such niceties, and not just with regards to its own position in the market; its own narrative rubs against that understanding.
Leaning against cultural boundaries between white British and Desi traditions, the film shows documentarian Zoe (Lily James) working on a new film to do with arranged marriages, specifically the one that her next door neighbour and best friend Kazim (Shazad Latif) has just agreed to.
Jemima Khan’s scripting puts a lot of legwork into highlighting the obvious differences in how matters of the heart and home are handled culturally, and even manages to get into areas where the two overlap; parents playing matchmaker is a cringe that knows no language or geographical barrier, both in rom-coms and in real life.
As charming and quite funny as it starts out (even if the reliance on puns veers between pithy and just taking the pith), it’s also rather top-heavy on two different fronts. On the commentary side of things, its salience fades into the background to make room for the kind of standard formula that Working Title Films (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually) are well-known for. On the comedy side of things, aside from Emma Thompson popping out to go on a scene-stealing spree (which will likely divide audiences), it eventually leans so far into the melodramatic that it starts to become off-putting.
Beyond that, the main flaw here is that its rallying cry to find connections through passion rather than complacency rings hollow. As much as it tries to head criticisms off at the pass with the inclusion of film producers Olly (Ben Ashenden) and Sam (Alexander Owen), playing industry optics with the marketability for Zoe’s film-within-a-film, it’s difficult to get past the film insisting on not settling for less… while still settling for less as a film. It recommends spice but the only thing in stock is korma.
From its bizarrely-mismatched title downwards, What’s Love Got To Do With It? promises more fire than it can ultimately deliver. It starts off strong, and admittedly manages a decent hit-to-miss ratio with its quips, but ends up spending more time insisting than it does arranging its perspective on fulfilment in life and love.
