What's love got to do with it? You may be unsurprised to learn that a romantic comedy that poses such a question upfront will also answer it... and that the answer will turn out to be exactly what you suspect it will.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, of course, that a lighthearted movie about romance with two appealing and charismatic people — who are definitely not a couple in spite of their obvious attraction to each other — not only will inevitably fail to surprise you, but that the lack of surprise is a feature, not a bug. These movies are built around a will they/won't they pseudosuspense that dare not overtly concede the certainty of a happily-ever-after, yet also dare not deny the audience such an ending.
The only question, then, with a movie like What's Love Got to Do with It? is this: Do we care? Do we like these people enough to get swept up in their temporary troubles and buy in to their obliviousness toward the perfect-for-them person right in front of them until they overcome that big ol' blind spot?
And the answer to that question in this case? Absolutely. The congenial thirtysomething Londoner not-couple here are Zoe (Lily James), a documentary filmmaker whose love life is a bit of a mess but she's happy being single anyway, and her childhood friend Kazim (Shazad Latif), a doctor who is letting his Pakistani-immigrant parents find him a bride.
Perhaps the best measure of a romantic comedy is whether you like the destined-for-each-other partners not only when they are sparking off each other but also when they're not even in the same scene. Zoe and Kazim? They are delightful together and separately. What's Love fits into the crowd-pleasing cinematic tradition of films where you don't even care what the beautiful, charming people onscreen are doing, as long as you get to spend time with them.
There's plenty more to recommend about What's Love, however. It showcases a more diverse London than we usually see in mainstream films (though that's beginning to change — see the just released Polite Society and Rye Lane) and it's a companionable multiculturalism on display, one that recognizes that much more unites us across religious and ethnic lines than divides us. Kazim has not agreed to an arranged marriage, but an "assisted" one. It's about getting some help meeting other marriage-minded people, definitely not about forcing anyone to do anything. We all know that it's tough to meet someone special no matter how you go about it. Zoe certainly does.
But the film also doesn't downplay the bigotry that still exists even in liberal London. When speaking about the next door neighbor address of their family homes, Kazim informs Zoe, "There's an entire continent between number 49 and 47." But mostly there's lots of cheerful cultural melting pot: Kazim's just-married brother, Farooq (Mim Shaikh), met his new wife, Yasmin (Iman Boujelouah), when they bonded over a discussion of how Islamic ideals are reflected in Harry Potter.
The film's depiction of Zoe's casually racist mom, Cath, might be seen as a downplaying of bigotry as something goofily endearing (especially since she's played by the goofily endearing Emma Thompson), but she is more a rather accurate portrait of offhand, almost performative narrowmindedness that is more tolerant than it realizes. That sounds unfortunate, but maybe it's hopeful? Like, maybe, scratch the surface of some racists, and there's actually a decent person to found underneath and coaxed out?
Is What's Love Got to Do with It? a slice of Asian experience through Zoe's white lens? A bit... though scriptwriter Jemima Khan, a journalist and film producer making her feature-screenplay debut, does sneak in a joke about that. But director Shekhar Kapur — in a departure from his previous films, such as the sweeping Cate Blanchett-led historic epics Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age — brings grounded authenticity to a tale that is, ultimately, about navigating old and deeply valued traditions through the modern world. Kapur shepherds What's Love to where it's going gently, with genuine smarts and real sentiment. ♦
WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
