Little White Lies Issue 98: April/May 2023

Released 28 APRIL ‘Polite society’ is a turn of phrase that came to prominence in the late 1700s, epitomising haughty upper-class judgement that deemed certain behaviour to be unbecoming. As the title of Nida Manzoor’s completely delightful debut feature, the writer/director co-opts this atmosphere of Regency-era snobbery to represent modern Pakistani society as governed by an unofficial council of disapproving “aunties” – an adversary that assumes many guises for her action heroine to bring down. “When I’m older, I’m going to be a stuntwoman.” Karate-chopping her way onto a big screen near you is the irrepressible protagonist of Polite Society, who likes to remind anyone who will listen about her destiny, regardless of their interest or, in the case of her teachers and parents, lack of enthusiasm. Ria Khan (Priya Kansara)…

Nida Manzoor, taking bites of a sugar-dusted cookie in a swanky Soho hotel, politely fudges the F-word. The only time she goes the full F-U-C-K is when scolding herself for being a South Asian good-girl. She’s living the social tension around pleasing others that’s escalated to bizarre proportions in her debut feature comedy, Polite Society. “Biscuits are nice!” is how Ria (Priya Kansara), the heroine, dismisses Saleem, the “nice”, “hotter than God” geneticist-doctor with dastardly nuptial plans on Lena (Ritu Arya), her sister. Niceness, in Polite Society, is evil. Fortunately, life doesn’t always imitate art, because Manzoor, clean-faced but for winged black eyeliner, is adorable. The sisterly naughtiness of her smash-hit series We Are Lady Parts is in evidence, as we bond over trashy films and a desire to see…

Nida Manzoor made her mark on the screen comedy map with the exquisite 2021 sitcom We Are Lady Parts, which charted the unlikely rise of an ethnically diverse all-female punk band band. Here we chart how others fared before her in making comedy for both the big and small screens. Edgar Wright Sitcom: Spaced Film: Shaun of the Dead Edgar Wright is perhaps the ultimate sitcom-to-movie pipeliner, with the epochal, reference-packed Spaced segueing very neatly into his beloved rom-zom-com, Shaun of the Dead. Stephen Soderbergh Film: Solaris Sitcom: K Street The sheer diversity of Soderbergh’s oeuvre means that there was bound to be a sitcom in there somewhere, and his pin sharp 2003 survey of DC lobbyists beats The Thick of It to the docucomic punch. David Gordon Green Film:…

If you take a peek at Priya Kansara’s acting CV, you’ll currently only see a couple of credits: three short films; small roles in two Netflix series; and now, the lead role in Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society. An actress very much at the beginning of what promises to be a storied career, Kansara studied science at university and was working in healthcare communications prior to making the giant leap towards performance. She studied acting at the Identity School, which was founded by Femi Oguns in 2003 and counts John Boyega and Letitia Wright among its alumni. After auditioning for a different part in Manzoor’s debut feature, Kansara impressed the team so much she was asked to read for the lead. She announces herself in dramatic and comic style with Polite…

As Lena in Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society, Ritu Arya is passed through the ringer of twentysomething depression, sibling rivalry and a sudden marriage to a wealthy bachelor who’s not all he’s cracked up to be. Like her sister in the film, Ria (Priya Kansara), Lena too leans on fantasy as a way to defeat the oppression she’s suffering from, and Arya channels the subtle complexity of the role with both levity and deftness. When we speak, she’s in Toronto filming the fourth series of Netflix’s alt superhero saga, The Umbrella Academy, and she’s set to appear again later this year in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. But Arya’s been around for a while, having starred in numerous films, TV shows, theatre production and shorts – including Manzoor’s 2017 Lady Parts, which would…

Just before she turned 20, Shaina West had a fractured neck, a broken hand, had just lost her job and her relationship, all due to a motorcycle accident. “I didn’t have anything going for me, but I spent most of my time – if not all of my time – watching movies,” she recalls over our evening Zoom chat. Anime and action movies became her lifeline. “You know when you watch a movie or a show for long enough, you become inspired to do what they’re doing?” she ponders. “If you’re watching a cooking show, you start cooking, or you watch a dance movie and by the end of it, you’re trying new moves that you have no right trying?” She watched the anime series Naruto (2002-2007) and movies such…