Jemima Khan recently sat down with the members of the Australian TV show The Project and spilled some beans about her upcoming release “What’s Love Got To Do With It” which is written and co-produced by Jemima Khan and directed by Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. The ensemble cast includes Sajal Aly, Emma Thompson, Lily James, Shazad Latif, Shabana Azmi, Asim Chaudhry, Mim Shaikh, Jeff Mirza, Iman Boujelouah, Mariam Haque, Rob Brydon, Sindhu Vee.
What Can We Expect From The Movie?
Jemima Khan describes “What’s Love Got To Do With It” as a romcom which shows the side of Pakistan she grew to admire and which the audiences in the Western side are rarely shown.
“It’s the rom-com Pakistan aside from the darkness of politics. It’s the jazz-hands version of Pakistan. Which is nice to show because you don’t often kind to see the colorful, vibrant Pakistan we’re much more used to seeing Pakistanis and Pakistan as a kind of darker place on our screens, particularly in the US and the UK. So it’s nice to show the version of Pakistan that I grew to love.”
Jemima Khan
How Is The Movie Inspired By Her Real Life?
She shared how the movie started as a joke whilst having a conversation about marriage and settling down while revealing some details from her marriage with Imran Khan.
“The film kind of started as a joke with my friends who were in their thirties, when i came back to the UK after having lived in Pakistan in those years. My ex-husband’s family is quite conservative so I lived in a joint family household. I lived with his father, his sisters, their husbands, and their kids. There were about 24 of us, living in the same house, and all our kids”
Jemima Khan
When asked about the contrast between love and arranged marriages being depicted in the movie and whether there is a point of learning there Jemima shared how she saw a different perspective while living in Pakistan.
“I did get to see arranged marriages up close, long-term ones and ones that were arranged that I was on the committee for. And some of them were surprising, to me, with my pre-conceptions, happy and successful. So when I came back in my thirties, my friends were at the point where they were hoping to settle down, have kids, get married, or maybe not get married. We would say if you had seen functional parents…who would they choose for you and would it work? And it became a conversation point, and I think there’s quite a lot to be said for like simmer then boil and walking into love or falling in love. And the idea that they always used to say ‘Love comes at the end of the beginning of a marriage.”
Jemima Khan
More About “What’s Love Got To Do With It”
The film centers around a girl Zoe played by Lily James who has had her fair share of bad dates much to her mother, Cath’s (Emma Thompson) dismay. Zoe decides to document her childhood friend and neighbor, Kazim’s (Shahzad Latif) journey from London to Lahore as he decides to follow his parents’ footsteps and opt for an arranged marriage with a girl from Pakistan (our guess is that the girl is going to be played by Sajal Aly)
As Zoe sees life from a new lens and experiences a world unknown to her, she questions her take on love. Get more details here.
Watch The Trailer Here
It is set to be released on 26th February in the UK.
