The first trailer for writer-director’s Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society has just dropped, and the Focus Features Film hits theaters April 28, 2023!
Manzoor has broken so much ground for brown women in her revolutionary Channel 4/Peacock series We Are Lady Parts, which debuted back in June 2021. Showing Black and brown Muslim women as raw, complicated, and joyful individuals in her rip-roaring and hilarious series, Manzoor has thrown out all of the racist rules that have limited brown and Muslim women in TV, and now she is doing the same in film with her debut martial arts epic feature film, Polite Society.
Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) is an aspiring stuntwoman, vigorously studying martial arts in her endeavor, who is close with her sister Lena (Ritu Arya), who is her constant cheerleader for her ambitions. But something nefarious is afoot with Lena’s upcoming marriage, especially with her mysterious future stepmother
You may recognize Arya from Netflix’s Umbrella Academy as the rambunctiously fun Lila Platts, and Bucha as the main antagonist of the MCU’s Ms. Marvel as Najma who, unfortunately, was one of Ms. Marvel’s low points, often written with simplistic and nonsensical motivations and falling into Orientalist tropes, with Bucha still doing the best she could. However, with Polite Society, Bucha seems to be given so much more enticing and exciting material to work with, making her an actually worthwhile antagonist to watch.
You can check out the new trailer for Polite Society below:
As you can see, we have rip-roaring action, martial arts, comedy, and brown-skinned desi people in a variety of protagonist and antagonistic roles as they constantly chew up their scenery. If this is what they showed us in the trailer, I can’t wait for what’s next in the film itself.
A summary of the film comes courtesy of Focus Features below:
A merry mash up of sisterly affection, parental disappointment and bold action, Polite Society follows martial artist-in-training Ria Khan who believes she must save her older sister Lena from her impending marriage. After enlisting the help of her friends, Ria attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.
Nida Manzoor is the writer and director of the film starring Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, and Ella Bruccoleri, with music by Tom Howe, Shez Manzoor, with producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Olivier Kaempfer, John Pocock, editor Robbie Morrison, and cinematographer Ashley Connor.
I for one am extremely excited, as We Are Lady Parts is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, and Manzoor’s trademark brilliance shines radiantly in this new trailer. I can’t wait to watch.
You can watch Polite Society when it debuts in theaters April 28, 2023.
