Movie Review: 'What's Love Got to Do With It' Bad Title, Good Romance

What's Love Got to Do With It (2023)

Directed by Shekhar Kapur

Written by Jemima Khan

Starring Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Sajal Aly

Release Date May 5th, 2023

Published May 4th, 2023

What's Love Got to Do With It has some hard work to do to overcome a rote, predictable outcome. The film follows a documentary filmmaker, played by Lily Collins whose new documentary is about her Pakistani friend, played by Shazad Latif, going through the motions of an arranged marriage. She's supposed to document his marriage to a stranger arranged by a matchmaker but since this is a movie and both Collins and Latif are young and attractive, we know that the movie is arranging for them to be married.

Knowing that, the movie needs to find a way to be charming while also being insanely predictable. The film has an uphill battle to try and build tension into a movie story that has no tension whatsoever. It can be done, most romantic comedies are built on a highly predictable conceit. The key to a modern rom-com is scribbling in the margins, creating laughs and charm amid the highly predictable machinations of a pre-destined ending.

Zoe (Collins) doesn't believe in love. She's not a romantic, she's a pragmatist. When she tells fairy tales to her best friends daughters, her cracked fairy tales invariably find the female protagonist rejecting the Prince in favor of independence and adventure. Her retelling of The Princess and the Frog has the hero failing to kiss the frog, preferring to take her new talking frog on the road to show off for audiences. Hey, how cool would it be to have a talking frog, right?

Zoe's conceptions of love and marriage are put to the test when her long time neighbor and friend, Kaz Khan tells her that he's agreed to see a matchmaker for an arranged marriage to a Pakistani woman, one approved of by his mother. His choice is fraught with backstory, Kaz's sister has been cast out of the family after she married a white man and had a child. Kaz's desire to be a good son to his traditional mother and grandmother drives his actions but it's clear his heart is not in this idea.

Zoe is compelled to capture the wedding process on film after she finds out that her latest documentary idea, something dreary about war or famine or some such thing, has been rejected for being too bleak. Needing a pitch in a pinch, she pitches Kaz's arranged marriage process as a documentary and receives a greenlight from her producers. Getting Kaz's green light however, is a little harder, he's not exactly thrilled about this idea. He reluctantly agrees and the documentary becomes the bomb under the table, that McGuffin that threatens the status quo of Kaz's plans for his arranged marriage.

That bit of plot structure only comes to light after the 'bomb' has gone off. Once it does go off it spins What's Love Got to Do With It in unexpected and highly expected directions. I really enjoyed the ways in which this romantic comedy unfolded, how it went to unexpected places and created genuine doubt about the outcome before correcting, quite reasonably, back to our expected outcome. Director Shekhar Kapur hasn't been back behind the camera since Elizabeth: The Golden Age underperformed at the box office in 2007 but he still shows a deft touch as a director.

Kapur is greatly aided by his wonderful casting choices. Lily Collins is the kind of radiant movie star that justifies the existence of a romantic comedy. Her beauty and light comic presence is simply too perfect not to be part of a romantic comedy. Her chemistry with Shazad Latif is quite good but it is in scenes where Zoe is struggling with her inner romantic demons where What's Love Got to Do With It really shines. I highlighted Zoe's cracked fairy tales earlier and I can't understate how delightful Collins is in scenes like this. Credit also should go to screenwriter Jemima Khan who helps navigate around the predictable character developments with smart plotting and witty dialogue.

What's Love Got to Do With It is a terrible title, trite and revealing of the formulaic nature of the movie. That said, when a movie is this charming and well put together, a bad title can't do too much harm. Plus, this is a movie where Emma Thompson plays a wacky mom to a romantic heroine, it can't possibly be bad. Thompson steals scenes as Lily Collins' mom, especially when she's joyously, drunkenly dancing at weddings. I could watch Emma Thompson drunkenly stumbling through weddings as its own movie.

What's Love Got to Do With It won't be remembered long after it ends but while you are watching it, you will be delighted and entertained. It's pro level rom-com business. Lily Collins is a movie star and while the movie is unlikely to do much business at the box office, it's a movie built for the streaming era. This is exactly the kind of film that will alight many nights of rom-com delight for audiences tripping over it on Valentine's Days or lonely nights where single folks need a little pick me up.

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