'What's Love Got To Do With It?' is a sweet old-fashioned notion

Documentary maker Zoe (Lily James) decides to make her latest film about arranged marriages in London, with the help of her childhood friend and next-door neighbour, Kaz (Shazad Latif). As the documentary progresses, Zoe finds herself drawn to Kaz and both of them begin to have mixed feelings about the arrangement, while their parents (Shabana Azmi) prepare for the wedding...

Like any genre, romantic comedies can’t help but follow the rules of their own making.

There’s the meet-cute scene, the run to the airport, the loyal friend telling the attractive protagonist to follow their heart, and there are the cheerfully bad dates. ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ makes no excuses for following these laws, but nevertheless, there’s a kind of condescension that’s present in the movie that’s impossible to ignore. The movie tries to take an enlightened view on arranged marriages, first by acknowledging its dark history and then qualifying it by saying it’s a part of culture and is now rebranded as assisted marriage. It wants you to question the whole thing but ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ also wants you to go along with it.

To be clear, ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ only tries to really push in close on the whole thing in a handful of scenes. The rest of the time, it’s a frothy and big-hearted rom-com that Richard Curtis cranked out in the ‘90s. Indeed, like Billy Eichner’s recent effort ‘Bros’, this movie attempts to place people and characters not usually seen in these kinds of movies, but still rigidly follow their rules. It works, for the most part, as the cast is admirably game for something this shallow, and the direction and script is as formulaic as you could hope for.

Lily James and Shazad Latif have a natural chemistry on screen together, and the whole will-they-won’t-they is couched in strong performances by both. The supporting cast is headed up by Emma Thompson, herself a veteran of Brit rom-coms of years past, and does a remarkable job of keeping things light and funny in times when it probably shouldn’t be. Shabana Azmi acts as a foil against Emma Thompson, while comedian Asim Chaudhry has an extended cameo as a matchmaker.

Shekhar Kapur previously directed historical epics such as ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘The Four Feathers’, while screenwriter Jemima Khan previously acted as an exec producer on a number of highly-acclaimed documentaries, such as ‘We Steal Secrets’, ‘Making A Killing’, and ‘The Clinton Affair’. It’s not so much that everyone here is slumming it, but it’s more that creating something so generally OK and kind of disposable feels like a waste of everyone’s talents.

Nevertheless, ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ is reasonably enjoyable fare and skirts a sensitive topic with some deft moves and competent direction.