Cinemaphile by Joanne Sargent
Special to the Observer
It’s been a difficult summer and the volunteers of the Shuswap Film Society send our healing thoughts to everyone affected by the fires.
Our new season begins with a much-needed uplift, What’s Love Got To Do With It, a rom-com about the complex and elusive challenge of finding “the one.”
Zoe, a successful filmmaker, is a bit of a disaster in the old relationship department herself, but she is shocked when her childhood friend Kaz tells her he’s going to follow Pakistani tradition and allow his parents to arrange a marriage for him. Zoe doesn’t comprehend why Kaz can’t find his own love interest, but she sees in his decision a perfect topic for a new documentary film.
So she sets out, camera in hand, to follow her old friend on every step of his “assisted” journey to the altar, which starts with a meeting with the jovial Mo the Matchmaker who vets potential Muslim girls and presents Kaz a bride prospect, Maymouna, a young, shy law student in Lahore, Pakistan. After a few Skype meet-ups, they are engaged and a wedding date is set.
Kaz’s family makes the trek from London to Lahore for the three-day wedding extravaganza. Zoe and her dotty, irrepressible mother (Emma Thompson) are also on board for the festivities which will be the centrepiece for Zoe’s documentary. Much like a Bollywood movie, the marriage is a spectacle of music and dance and it turns out the bride is not as timid and retiring as she appeared in the introductory online chats – the girl likes to party!
What’s Love Got To Do With It reveals the stumbling blocks in both Eastern and Western approaches to love and marriage, and poses interesting questions about relationships in the 2020s. It plays at 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9 at the Salmar Classic.
Read more: 10 movies you might not have known have scenes shot in Canada
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