Sundance Review: POLITE SOCIETY is a funny, flashy, action-packed movie with heart

Full of vivid colors and fantastic fighting scenes, Kind company, written and directed by Nida Manzoor, is part coming-of-age comedy, part action film. There’s even a dance number!

Ria Khan (Priya Kansasara) is your quirky schoolgirl with dreams of becoming the best stuntwoman in the world. In her spare time she films her stunt videos with the help of her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya). Lena dropped out of art school, but Ria is still adamant that her sister is destined to become a great artist. Things change when Lena starts dating the son of a wealthy family, and Ria’s expectations are shattered when she Lena announces after only a month that she will get married.

Ria simply cannot understand her sister’s motives. What on earth could be more important than following your one big dream? She becomes determined to stop the wedding and convince her sister that she really is an artist, not a trophy wife. It is easy to see that Ria’s hopes for her sister are closely tied to her personal dreams of success, and therefore her personal stakes are even greater.

While this film isn’t super provocative, it is tremendously imaginative and has a lot of heart. Ria’s fight sequences and blend of reality and fantasy reminded me a lot of one of my favorite movies, Scott Pilgrim versus the world. A lot of inspiration was taken from other movies but the great mix of genres makes it feel fresh. And the supporting characters add authenticity to scenes of otherwise silly hijinks. I really enjoyed this movie and can’t wait to see what Nida Manzoor will do next!

Here’s the full description of Sundance, and you can watch the trailer here:

London student and tireless martial artist Ria Khan is determined to become a world-famous stunt performer. She is devastated when her older sister, Lena, drops out of art school, starts dating Salim – the handsome and wealthy son of the prominent Shah family – and announces, after just a month, that they intend to marry and move to singapore! How could Lena abandon her artistic dreams to become a trophy wife? But soon Ria realizes something is wrong, and she is left with no choice but to enlist her friends in a daring mission to kidnap Lena from the same wedding as hers.

The wickedly funny and cinematically exuberant debut film from Nida Manzoor (creator of We are Lady Parts), Kind company is an Austenesque tale of two sisters (one in wedding chains) through a loving and anarchic mashup of genres (action comedy, heist, martial arts, Bollywood, social horror). Plus, it’s an ingenious reimagining of British diasporic storytelling. Newcomer and force of nature Priya Kansara leads an extraordinary cast, including Ritu Arya as Lena and Nimra Bucha as the nefarious matriarch Shah.