Polite Society is a 2023 British martial arts action/comedy film written and directed by Nida Manzoor (in her feature film directorial debut). The film stars Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri, Shona Babayemi, Shobu Kapoor, and Jeff Mirza.

Polite Society had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2023, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 28 April 2023 by Focus Features. The film received favourable reviews from critics.

Plot
In London, British-Pakistani teenager Ria Khan aspires to become a movie stuntwoman like her idol, Eunice Huthart. Under an alter-ego, "The Fury", Ria creates films of martial arts training with the help of her older sister Lena, who has dropped out of art school and moved back in with their loving but traditional parents, Fatima and Rafe, both of them discouraging Ria's dreams. 

At school, Ria is inseparable from her friends Clara and Alba, but their disapproving teacher urges her to pursue a more "serious" career. Ria's emails to Eunice about a potential mentorship go unanswered, and she is soundly defeated by the school bully Kovacs. The Khan family is invited to an Eid Mubarak soirée by Raheela, the leader of Fatima's social circle of Pakistani mothers, at her lavish mansion. Ria realizes the party has been arranged to find a suitable match for Raheela's son Salim, a successful geneticist, but is unable to stop Lena from agreeing to a date. 

To Ria's horror, Lena is charmed by Salim and, after a few whirlwind weeks of dating, agrees to marry him and move to Singapore. Despite their parents' support, Ria's refusal to accept Lena's choices, including abandoning her art career, drives the sisters apart. Convinced there must be a more sinister explanation, Ria enlists Clara and Alba's help to spy on Salim. They concoct an elaborate plan to steal his laptop, and Ria distracts him while her friends hack his computer, but they find nothing incriminating. 

Desperate to sabotage Lena's relationship, Ria lashes out at her friends, and breaks into Salim's bedroom to plant used condoms. She is caught, and confronts Salim with a lovey-dovey picture showing him together with a pretty girl, whom he explains is his first wife who died in childbirth. Furious, Lena berates Ria to give up the fantasies that her sister will change her mind about marriage, or that she will ever become a stuntwoman.

At odds with her sister and ignored by her friends, Ria gives up martial arts. She visits Raheela to apologize and is dragged into joining her spa day, where Raheela reveals her true colors and tortures Ria with waxing. Fighting off Raheela's staff, Ria stumbles into the mansion's secret lab and discovers that all the eligible women at the Eid party were secretly scanned and tested, and Lena was selected for her fertility. 

Escaping back home, Ria realizes she cannot convince her family of the truth. She tells Clara and Alba, and together they devise a plan, persuading Kovacs to drive them to the wedding to rescue Lena. Ria distracts the guests with a spectacular Filmi (Bollywood-style) dance ("Maar Dala") while Clara and Alba, disguised as waiters, sneak past the armed guard at Lena's door. They chloroform Lena and hide her inside a tea trolley, but Raheela captures Ria, and reveals she and Salim plan to impregnate Lena with a clone of Raheela. 

Forced to return Lena, the friends are locked in the bridal suite as the wedding begins, but Kovacs comes to their rescue and subdues the guard. Taking his gun, Ria holds Raheela at gunpoint and exposes her plan, leading Lena to remember being drugged and tested by Salim, who admits that his first wife died carrying his mother’s clone. Raheela seizes the gun but is disarmed by Fatima, as Ria’s family and friends fight off the guests.

Lena subdues Salim while Ria finally masters a reverse spinning kick to defeat Raheela, and the police arrive as the sisters drive off. Reconciling with Lena, Ria finally receives an encouraging email from Eunice, and the sisters celebrate together.

Cast

Production
In January 2022 it was revealed that director Nida Manzoor was working on a feminist martial arts action/comedy film focusing on two British-Pakistani sisters in London. The film is by Working Title, Focus Features and Parkville Pictures, and has a tone and voice similar to Manzoor’s breakthrough and BAFTA, Peabody, and Rose d'Or award winning sitcom series We Are Lady Parts. 

In February 2022 it was announced that filming had wrapped on the project in London. It is produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner for Working Title with Olivier Kaempfer and John Pocock for Parkville Pictures. Focus Features had distribution rights.

The typography & graphic design for the title card, credits, chapter headings and fight sequence introductions was designed by Peter Anderson Studio.

Genre and influences
While the structure of Polite Society does not adhere to a specific genre throughout, Manzoor has described portions of it as "a joyful kung fu Bollywood epic." Mansoor also drew from spaghetti westerns,  All About Eve, Hong Kong kung-fu films, and the work of Yuen Woo-ping. Additional influences include the 2002 version of Devdas (Ria's dances to Maar Dala at the wedding), the novels of Jane Austen, Jackie Chan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Get Out, Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino), Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, and The Slums of Beverly Hills.

Release
Polite Society was released at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on 21 January 2023, at the 2023 Glasgow Film Festival on 12 March 2023, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 28 April 2023.

Reception 
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 158 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critics' consensus reads: "Polite Society throws, kicks, and punches the genre etiquette book out the window to deliver a fun film that blends Bollywood splendor and British wryness." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Robbie Collin in the Daily Telegraph described it as “rollicking” and “crafty and fresh” and “all done with infectious pep”, with “the fights themselves – witty, lucid, crunchy, slick” and Kansara a “blatant star-in-the-making”.

BBC Culture's Mohammad Zaheer gave it four stars and wrote that the film was "an action-packed, genre-blending delight that fires on all cylinders" and that "[e]verything – from the writing to the cinematography, the performances, the choreography and the soundtrack – is on point, and it has all the requisite ingredients to be an exhilarating experience for audiences that come along for the ride." He also praised the lack of stereotypes regarding Lena's engagement to Salim.

See also
List of female action heroes and villains

References

External links
 
Polite Society - Sundance Film Festival

2023 films
2023 action comedy films
2023 directorial debut films
2023 independent films
2023 romantic comedy-drama films
2020s action comedy-drama films
2020s British films
2020s buddy comedy-drama films
2020s coming-of-age comedy-drama films
2020s English-language films
2020s female buddy films
2020s heist films
2020s martial arts comedy films
2020s romantic action films
2020s teen comedy-drama films
2020s teen romance films
British action comedy-drama films
British buddy comedy-drama films
British coming-of-age comedy-drama films
British female buddy films
British heist films
British independent films
British Pakistani films
British romantic comedy-drama films
British teen comedy-drama films
British teen romance films
Coming-of-age romance films
Films about weddings in the United Kingdom
Films set in London
Films shot in London
Focus Features films
Martial arts films
Teen action films
Working Title Films films