Catch-Up Watch: Polite Society (2023)

Watched:  09/11/2026

Format:  Peacock 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Nida Manzoor

I'd seen a trailer for Polite Society (2023) when it was coming out, but theatrical windows are short, and I missed it.  Since then, I believe it was Stuart who rec'd it, and I'd had it loosely in the back of my head to watch, meanwhile forgetting why I wanted to see it or what it was about.

Well, whatever I thought it was about, the movie kind of defies genre or expectations at multiple points, and I mean that in the best way.  It's like someone took good ideas and stitched them together into exactly the movie they wanted to make (no, I don't know who Nida Manzoor is exactly, but she also did the series We Are Lady Parts in England, which got good notices).  

It's a movie about a young woman still in high school, a bit of a nerd, who wants to be a stuntwoman, and so practices martial arts and stunts.  Her sister is home, having quit art school, and clearly suffering depression, or at least a deep melancholy, when she meets a handsome young guy whose mother is setting him up to meet a young woman for marriage.  

Our hero, Ria (Priya Kansara), does not like this guy and the notion her sister will never return to art and decides she's gotta fix this.

I realize I forgot to mention: the movie takes place within the British-Pakistani community in London, therefore there's certainly some cultural stuff in the film that I think is easy enough to understand even if it's not your run-of-the-mill white people nonsense.  

Anyway - I am not spoiling this movie.  It's a rare treat to have no idea where a movie is headed when you think you have it pegged.  I had absolutely no clue where things were going, scene-to-scene.  

The talent in the movie is terrific.  The aforementioned Priya Kansara is *fantastic*.  Absolutely a firecracker on screen - and I just read she was ship's voice on Project Hail Mary.  Go figure!  The sister, Lena, is Ritu Arya who has also appeared in Barbie (as a Barbie), The Umbrella Academy, and plenty of other stuff. 

Anyway - it's more or less family friendly if your family can handle PG-13, so get out there and find it.