Polite Society

Polite Society is an action-comedy with a ton of style. Ria (Priya Kansara) aspires to become a stunt woman, filming videos for her channel and sending emails to Eunice Huthart. She’s a bit…imaginative, leading to a seemingly grounded world which takes on a fantasy bent. When her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) gets engaged to a charming rich geneticist after a short courtship, Ria sets about trying to rescue her sister. But does Lena even want to be rescued?

The set up is a pretty standard narrative, but with a fun and kinda sorta over the top tone. It doesn’t go full out like a You Don’t Mess With the Zohan; this is essentially the real world, after all. But it does feature a fight with a bully and some wuxia inspired choreography and moves. And everybody’s characters feel a bit heightened. When she arrives at school, her best friends immediately fall into step behind her, as if they were just standing around, waiting for her arrival. The fiance’s family is portrayed as sinister and shadowy, as Ria’s having a tough time accepting her sister’s betrothal.

This difficulty adjusting looks to be the theme the movie wanted to address, and more generally how Ria seems to have decided Lena’s future without stopping to consider whether Lena’s goals may have changed. When we first meet Lena, she’s returned from art school, and is so frustrated with her lack of painting ability that she slashes the canvas with her brush. Lena is despondent, seemingly just laying in bed all day. Her future seems uncertain; both Ria and her mother (Shobu Kapoor) state very confidently what Lena wants, but notably Lena doesn’t get to speak for herself. But something about being with Salim (Akshaye Khanna) seems to bring her back to life. Lena wanted to be a painter, but got frustrated, and has found love, even if her career isn’t settled. In life, sometimes all you can do is roll with the punches, go with what seems to be good in the moment, and figure out the rest when the time comes.

That Ria struggles to accept this makes a ton of sense. Ria’s a bit strange, not exactly popular, but her sister has been a constant source of support. The idea of losing that connection seems to terrify Ria. So much so that she images wild stories about how Salim is awful and his mother (Nimra Bucha) is evil. She develops a scheme to split up Ria and Salim by any means necessary, leading to some odd and entertaining heist scenes.

But how much of this is in her head, and how much of it is reality? After all, the whole movie is told from her creative viewpoint, so we don’t know how reliable she is. It could be a creative and impressionistic interpretation of events that actually occurred (a la Scott Pilgrim), or she could have imagined nefarious intent where none actually existed. And even within those branches, there are a bunch of options for exactly how to resolve them.

Which is why I was disappointed by the path chosen. I’m not going to pretend I was anywhere close on the specifics, but the broad strokes were exactly what I was rooting against. In large part because it undermines much of the first two acts, pulling the rug out from under the themes in order to fit in another handful of action scenes. Granted, they were pretty cool; the dresses most of the characters involved are wearing look absolutely fantastic mid-kick or cartwheel. But it all rings kind of hollow since I’m not really sure what it was all for. It’s not that the plot is unclear, just the message.

Honestly, even the first portion of the film is kind of a mess. It never quite settles into a rhythm or finds its comedic voice. Yes, the comedy will work for some people (as it did for many in my screening), and it did hit at a number of points for me. It just feels like a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” approach. There’s lots of slapstick, tons of silliness, but also some bad costumes, sex jokes, and general humor via discomfort. It was all over place, exuding a very manic energy.

At least it’s fairly consistent with that tone. However, it makes the few times they depart that much more noticeable. Namely, they bring the movie to a halt in order for Ria to experience a sort of dark night of the soul. Which is fine, but after dwelling on that for a single scene, we more or less hop right back to the same tone as before, which is jarring. I had expected a shift at that point, at least for a few scenes. They could have at least paid off a particular element setup early on which seemed tailor made for such a situation.

Which I think encapsulates my mixed reaction. It’s fresh and different, but each decision they make is safe, or at least boring. At no point did I find myself intrigued or wondering where they were heading. And all the interstitial stuff wasn’t good enough to really hold my attention. So it never quite gelled for me.

I do recommend checking it out, but maybe tone down your expectations.