Jemima Khan screened her new film ‘Whats Love Got To Do With It’ at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.
Written and produced by Khan, the film is also creating waves because of its multicultural cast, starring Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Shabana Azmi and Sajal Ali among others.
Having been writing the movie for 10 years, according to the Toronto Star, Khan exclaimed that it “It feels like 300”.
The Working Title production is already getting good reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it a ‘Vibrant Multicultural Rom-Com.’
This is also a very personal project as “all the characters in the film are based on characters I have met along the way in my life”, she stated at a post-screening celebration, reported the Toronto Star.
The cross-cultural British romantic comedy focuses on filmmaker Zoe, played by Lily James, and her journey to love, which mainly include swiping on dating apps along with bad dates and her close friend Kazim, played by Shazad Latif who decides to opt for an arranged marriage with Maymouna played by Sajal Ali.
The film is slated for release in the UK on January 27, 2023.
Khan's two sons, Sulaimain and Kasim, were also in Toronto to support their mother.
In a cast interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Khan expressed her view on arranged marriages or ‘assisted’ marriages as she sees them.
Recounting her experience of having lived in Pakistan for about 10 years, she shared how she has seen very successful ones, even amongst the younger generation, and of course some not so.
The movie, as she would call it, is her own exploration into finding out what it takes to find lasting love, as someone who has been "quite useless at it, personally", she shared self-deprecatingly.
On representation in the film, Khan said how when she was living in Pakistan a common complaint she heard was that in the west Pakistanis are only depicted as "terrorists, fundamentalists" or largely "backward" or "unaspirational".
She therefore, has tried to depict a very "different" type of story, showcasing a second-generational British-Pakistani family, promising there are definitely no "terrorists" in the film.
Khan previously was in the news for taking her name off as a consultant to the series, ‘The Crown’ as she did not like how the characterisation of Diana was shaping up. Another project that is in the works is one with Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downtown Abbey.
Called ‘Five Arrows', it is a drama about the Rothschild family and their influence across Europe in the 19th century.
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