What’s Love Got to Do with It? (2023) | Film Review

Heritage and family tradition are as old as time, yet the modern romantic-comedy rarely submerges into these waters. Possibly due to the heightened sensibilities and respect for cultural differences of today, or simply due to a lack of understanding. Who knows why, but there is a distinct lack of content for those with less Americanized views on romance, and What’s Love Got to Do with It? wants to speak to that.

Zoe (Lily James) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker in desperate need of a subject. Her pitches to her producers are not igniting much interest at until she casually mentions her friend and neighbor, Kazim aka “Kaz” (Shazad Latif), intends to dispense with swiping apps and blind dates by agreeing to pay tribute to his Pakistani roots and choosing his bride by arrangement.

The concept is both curious and erratic to Zoe’s eyes, and therefore a perfect portrait to capture for her next film. As Zoe grows closer to his family while trying to understand their heritage (and her flighty yet loving mother, Emma Thompson, seems destined to convert), she begins to realize her own feelings for Kaz just as he has chosen an awfully young suitor. Though she has been a wreck in regard to her own love life, choosing one-night stands and drunken affairs over connection, Zoe believes Kaz might just be the diamond in the rough she’s been searching for. But an arranged marriage is not a prospect one should trifle with. Is it?

Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) directs Jemima Khan’s script with reverence and joy, the tone is light yet genuine in its design. Arranged marriages might not be widely accepted, but in many cultures, it is still seen as a sign of familial honor. The film paints a careful brush as it glides between the open and wilder aspects of what Zoe sees as natural romanticism, and Kaz’s more traditional views of family pride over selfishness. What Khan’s story significantly captures is that neither is the correct answer for everyone, as both have their pluses and their drawbacks.

Any romantic-comedy lives and dies by the intended couple, and Latif and James wear an easy chemistry. Shazad Latif’s presentation of a dutiful man firmly attempting to maintain his dignity is well-honed. That said, it is Lily James who briskly carries the film with her effervescent charm and incandescent smile. James has the ability as an actress to commit near atrocities with her character’s poorly formed decisions, and still catch us smirking and doe-eyed on the other side of the frame. Her humor and grace are easily the film’s strongest weapons.

What’s Love Got to Do with It? aims to point a finger directly at our current ties to technology as a suitor and also showcase the potential advantages of arranged marriages. These are difficult tasks, and both are handled amicably in a delightfully warm comedy that reminds us all there are always two sides to every storybook romance.