Yahoo Movies Polite Society's Nida Manzoor was asked to centre it on a white family
Polite Society writer-director Nida Manzoor has revealed she was asked to centre the narrative on a white family early in the film’s development.
The action-comedy, which is Manzoor’s feature-length debut, follows Ria (Priya Kansara) as she tries to pull off a heist at her sister Lena’s (Ritu Arya) wedding.
In an exclusive interview with Digital Spy, Manzoor revealed that she overcame obstacles early in the film’s development, which started over a decade ago with the first draft of the script.
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“Early on, when I was trying to get it made, I had people wanting me to make it about a white family rather than a South Asian family,” she said. “I had people wanting to take out the action: you know, kind of bizarre requests.
“I realised I was developing it with the wrong people, where it was like: ‘Can you make it more traumatic?’ They wanted the older sister character to be more in a forced marriage situation. I was like, ‘Stories about South Asians don’t only have to be about trauma and misery.’ [They] can be about joy.
“I realised early on I was in the wrong space,” she added. “I feel very lucky to have Working Title, Focus Features, and Universal behind the film, who really just empowered me to lean into the genre and the joy. So I feel like I got to make it right in the end, even if it took a while.”
Manzoor, whose previous directorial credits include Doctor Who, added that she suffered her fair share of setbacks during the film’s lengthy lifespan, but her work on sitcom We Are Lady Parts motivated her to complete Polite Society.
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“It went through so many processes of evolution. I got a lot of rejection early on, which kind of knocked my confidence for a while,” she explained. “It wasn’t until I got the chance to make We Are Lady Parts that I found my voice again and what I want to be as a filmmaker.
“It was perfect timing because I learned the skill of what I needed to do to write and to improve Polite Society. When it came around [and] became an option again, I felt like I was able [and] ready to make the film and do it justice,” she added.
Polite Society is released in cinemas on April 28.
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