Review: 'London Nahi Jaunga' is a thoroughly entertaining apology by Khalil ur Rehman Qamar

Danabad village in District Faislabad is associated with the folk tale of Mirza Sahiban, the epic story of a woman who elopes with her lover Mirza, but her heart still beats for her brothers. Mirza waits under a jand tree, he doesn’t want to enter the village right away because her sister is being wed at the same time. Sahiban is with him. She fears that the angry Mirza is going to kill her brothers out of anger so she twists his bow and breaks the arrow. Her brothers arrive not with blessings for her sister but with fury, a helpless Mirza is stabbed to death by the brothers and so is the sister.

Hasan Miraj in his book Rail Ki Seeti writes that since Sahiban’s sacrifice, one woman in every generation of Siyals ends up falling in love and dying for it at the peak of her youth. “On the other side of the rail track, in Jhang, the same story is associated with Heer.”

While some see this as a story of a woman’s commitment to what she always wanted, others view it as a woman being reduced to her love life. Centuries later, a ‘more woke’ and softer film inspired by similar stories has the Pakistani box office on fire. Written by the ever-so-controversial Khalil ur Rehman Qamar and directed by Nadeem Baig, London Nahi Jaunga ground itself into the rich folk heritage of Punjab and reproduces a story with similar characters and tropes but with a loud and at times, forced feminist hot-take on everything.

Chaudhary Jameel Qamar (Humayun Saeed) is a burly, soft-hearted successor to Chaudhary Kafeel (Sohail Ahmed). He is into dog racing and poetry and is equally bad at both, in fact, much worse at poetry, which somehow forms the climax of the film. The Qamar surname and TikTok-friendly poetry give the impression that Humayun plays if not Qamar, then the writer’s projection of himself on the big screen. “Muhabbat science hoti hai, Becharna art hota hai.” So grand. Wow. Tehzeeb Hafi has a new competetor in the field.

Jameel’s Japan-imported dog loses to a dog from Pattoki and so, he ends up fulfilling his promise of getting hitched to a girl – Arzoo (Kubra Khan) – who has always wanted to marry him. Zara Mansoor (Mehwish Hayat), a girl dressed in tights, randomly crashes their engagement ceremony and asks for a tour of their historic mansion. Enamoured by her beauty, Jameel stalls everything to give her a tour, to which no one objects. And then when he finally comes back to the ceremony, Arzu collapses in front of the crowd and the engagement gets postponed indefinitely.

SPOILER ALERT!

It is revealed that Zara is the daughter of Jameel’s aunt (Saba Hameed), who, along with her lover, (surname Jami), was killed by the Tiwanas for marrying against their will. Turns out, her mother who was pregnant at that time, somehow survived and so did the baby, and they are now settled in London. We are not told what stroke of luck made them so fortunate overnight but the film overrides this loophole so swiftly and holds the rest of the story together so firmly that you aren’t bothered by the glitch, which could have otherwise been a blunder.

An extended apology by KRQ

Zara has come back to avenge her father’s death and alter the cycle of oppression that was unfair to her mother, all the while offering a public apology to feminists on behalf of KRQ. Trust me, it almost feels like if it was up to Qamar, he would have made the women in the film burn his own effigy and stomp over it with a happy Rahat song playing in the background. But thankfully, it doesn’t come to that. He seems to have corrected all the flaws and ‘misunderstandings’ regarding his rash and misogynistic public statements. Or else, how would he have convinced Meesha Shafi to sing a song written by KRQ in a film written by KRQ, and her mother, Saba Hameed and Iffat Omar, to play some of the most important roles in the same film.

Perhaps a dialogue has taken place behind the scenes and that dialogue has clearly rendered fruitful for the audience, given the short but spectacular performance by Hameed.

The film is so full of statements about gender equality that Mehiwsh Hayat even joins Humayun to fight equally in an action sequence in which he is supposed to save her from the goons. There are references and one-liners that make a case for a woman’s agency and accuse men of making everything related to women a matter of their honour and pagh (read, respect). He even uses the metaphor of using imported phones instead of manufacturing our own in order to justify why our ‘ghairat’ doesn’t matter where it needs to matter.

The father admits to his son becoming a feminist and how he has forfeited his army of ‘ghairat’ in front of his son’s reasoning and logic. Yes, it seems like an OD of sorts but then KRQ needed not just a miracle, but a series of them to absolve him of his sins.

Incredible performances and casting

Humayun Saeed doesn’t have a huge range as an actor which is why he gets people to write roles that seem tailor-made for him. Chaudhary Jameel is no different. It offers the actor enough poker-face moments to ace his performance as a confused Punjabi Romeo and relies mostly on his silence, and if needed, short but steady monologues that don’t rely on a loud build-up in the crescendo. The role keeps Humayun in his comfort zone and he takes you for a good ride. Save for the Punjabi dance number at a London wedding, which neither had a memorable melody nor served any purpose in driving the plot forward.

Kubra Khan was the real surprise package. It was fascinating to see Kubra, who is otherwise known for her British accent, sport an educated girl from rural Punjab. In her limited but significant screen-time, she ruled the screen and camera, equally! The same was the case with Vasay Chaudhry, who plays Harry. While we are so used to seeing him as a host responding to juggats on TV, his role as Zara’s best friend in London grows on you and you are ready to buy his occasional goofiness and presence as a friend who isn’t charming but is always there.

If the film will be remembered as yet another successful box office venture by Humayun it will also be remembered for gifting Gohar Rasheed the role and stature he always deserved. He plays Jameel’s sidekick with the comfort and agility of an actor who has over the years, carved himself into a tool for the directors to play with. And not many in the new crop of performers have the capability to do that, let alone, doing that without meeting the conventional standards of good looks. It was good to not see Nayyar Ejaz in a Pakistani film and see Asif Raza Mir fill in for a Pir who dominated the film while sitting on a chair throughout.

There’s something special about the close-ups of the old guard of actors. Go see the film and tell me why are they so particularly arresting?

All in All

In the end, I have a confession to make. I haven’t watched Punjab Nahi Jaaongi and the reason why I mentioned it in end is that you are going to enjoy the sister film regardless of having watched the previous one. London Nahi Jaunga has memorable one-liners and a consistent storyline that fills most of the gaps but it takes a lot of time to do that. The intermission could have easily arrived at the peak confrontation between Jameel and Zara and the film could have easily ended at least 30 minutes shy and left an equally satisfying and a lot less exhausting aftertaste.

All in all, the film is one of the finest offerings by Pakistani cinema that is going to earn even better numbers at the international box office. And for it to be rooted in and inspired by Punjab’s folk heritage is going to be a major factor in placing Pakistani cinema as an extension of Bollywood which is, frankly speaking, a good thing.

This also reminds me of writing about ‘Ghabrana Nahi Hai’ and why it felt that Pakistani cinema can’t compete with Bollywood because good storytelling comes from a place of rich, textured mythology, not a place where stunted ideas are repeated and retold with renewed vigor and a reimagined sense of morality.

KRQ’s biggest achievement is the seamlessness with which he has taken elements of Punjabi folk heritage, stories we have heard again and again, and merged them with something as relatable as a property dispute and then garnished it with enough masala and ‘discourse’ for people to chew on. Kudos to both Baig and KRQ for picking the script and with it, tapping into a range of archetypes that seem familiar and fresh at the same time.

Context not trivia

Having said that, author Miraj says that while women dying for love is very much a motif of Punjabi folktales, in Punjabi folktales, women are mostly scoffed at as emotionally charged and rationally weak beings who are easily impressionable. “So I’d say the girl coming back to avenge her parent’s love story can be called a good spin on existing folk characters like Sahiban and countless others but it isn’t entirely honest to how women are seen and shown in Punjabi’s folktales,” he says.

“It’s actually Bhittai’s heroines that are included in the Sindhi folk heritage that have tremendous agency and power and are very much the drivers of their own destiny,” he says.

Rating: 3.5 stars