It’s the end of 2023 and I can’t let it pass without sharing the best film I saw in theaters this year. It’s feminist, it’s feisty, and it’s hilarious. Forget Atomic Blonde, Promising Young Woman, and every other violent female rage plot you think you know. Polite Society gets to the core of what we really want: War on the Patriarchy.
Ok maybe it’s not quite so grand, but it feels that big. Above all, this movie is exhuberantly fun. It is punchy, with Scott-Pilgrim-style scene cuts, hilarious moments that only the ladies will truly understand, and brutally swift fight scenes. Our heroine, Ria, and a team of friends fight for her sister’s freedom. Lena is being lulled into giving up on her artistic dreams and being whisked away by a well-toned doctor to Shanghai.
Ria, a stunt-woman-in-progress, immediately sniffs out the bad vibes laid by this man and his mother, Raheela.
Other feminist fighting movies tend to take themselves seriously with flawless tough girl physicality, but Polite Society leans into humor, fun, and everything that comes with being a girl. And, yes, sometimes that means getting your ass kicked. But it also means standing up for yourself against mean girls and shady situations. What is being a girl in the patriarchy if not being falsely lured into a life you don’t want just to please others? And what is a feminist if not the girl who pushes back from that?
One scene shows a digital anatomical outline of a woman and uterus, and it’s one of those weirdly bold things that you didn’t realize you’d never seen on screen until it showed up. No, we usually see a uterus as a 2D drawing, often disembodied, separate from the woman who it is supposed to inhabit. Putting the uterus in the context of a female body makes the audience see a whole person, not just parts. It makes a tight link between a woman’s uterus and her personhood. And when we know Lena might be in danger of being used for her anatomy (specifically her medically wondrous uterus), it becomes clear that this is a violation of her freedom and personhood.
Ria and Lena are messy. They fight. They scream. They dance uncontrollably. They’re allowed to be girls. Their parents are incredibly patient and forgiving of their unladylike behavior, as well as forgiving of late-bloomer Lena who lives at home trying to make it as an artist. At one point, at dinner, one of her parents notes that Lena looks better and she says, “Thanks. I showered.” The humor doesn’t negate the heartwarming acceptance, where most adult children would be rebuffed for not having a paying job. Their parents let them be who they are, even if they aren’t totally on board with Ria becoming a stunt woman, and that in itself is a powerful feminist message: Women should be encouraged and supported, not controlled.
This is a story about girls and women as they are, not as society, the patriarchy, wants them to be. The forces that challenge them otherwise are often the fighting opponents. Schoolmate Kovacs bullies Ria because she says she’ll never be a stunt woman. Ria fights Lena because she wants to protect her from being swept away by her hasty marriage. She fights others who also wish her sister to marry Salim. Even though the majority of these fights are with other women, it is the conventions they want to impress upon Ria and Lena that are the real enemy. There is no personal hate between the women of this movie, except maybe for the evil soon-to-be-mother-in-law.
The few problems I had with the film lay in Salim and his mother. While it is a stereotype that Indian parents dote on their sons while placing restrictions on their daughters, the film indicates that being too close as mother and son is wrong. Though this was a pillar of the plot, it didn’t sit well with me that the one major male character in the film was made fun of for being too sensitive. But I can forgive this based on everything else this movie has to offer.
Polite Society celebrates wonderful things about Indian culture including beautiful dance, elaborate dresses that wave dramatically with a round-house kick, familial involvement, love, and ambition. But it also shows some of the false niceties used to control women under the guise of tradition. I don’t see this as a critique exclusive to Indian culture, but to tradition and social norms as a whole. The main characters are definitely Westernized, so the mix of influence feels like a universal statement: Don’t force us to do things we don’t want to do. But in the meantime, we’re going to have fun while we fight the patriarchy.
