Poppa (played by film debutant Khushhal Khan) is a self-centred unlikeable man. Unhappy with his past life in Pakistan, where his respected, well-to-do family carries a holy lineage (his dad, played by Rehan Sheikh, is a pir or spiritual leader), Poppa — who continuously asks people to call him ‘Poo’ for some misguided reason — is happily settled abroad. He (presumably) has a live-in relationship with a girlfriend whose dog he happily bathes like a manservant.

Life is perfect for the young man in the land of the free. Until he is emotionally blackmailed to return for his sister’s wedding.

She is 28, and nearly too old to marry (her family worries), but her beloved brother Poppa has no such angst. In fact, he doesn’t want her to marry. His reason against her happily-ever-after is that she hasn’t seen the groom.

Spoiler Alert! — her husband turns out to be alright.

Irrespective of his humiliation (Poppa gets embarrassed a lot throughout the film), not seeing one’s soon-to-be life-partner is the grand conflict in this movie, written and directed by Ammar Lasani and Kanza Zia — and it is also the story’s biggest crutch.

With Poppay Ki Wedding, the filmmakers chose to go with the formula that works best in Pakistan: comic shenanigans and big, loud weddings. But adhering to these keywords do not a film make

Arranged marriages, where elders make full and final decisions, is a reigning custom of the pir’s family, but not seeing one’s significant other — or having any exchange of communication or pictures — doesn’t make sense, especially when women of the family meet in fancy restaurants for dinners or take and exchange selfies without inhibition.

Poppa’s unhinged, bungled attempts to first ruin his sister’s wedding and then foil his own arranged marriage turns the film into a plotless screamfest — however, the audience (eight of the 11 people sitting near silently at the show) may very well have long realised that the film is more half-baked than one thought.

Not counting technical instances that force one to facepalm time and again — the lens choices and camera moves are ineffective and one notices highlight clipping (ie inaccurate camera exposures) on skin tones in several scenes — it is the unthinkingly designed story that gives you headaches.

See, the problem is the depiction of a conservative family. While arranged marriages still happen today, even the strictest of families — especially one where elders really do want the best life for their children — at least show the intended bride and groom pictures of their betrothed, even if conversations of any kind are prohibited.

Strangely, for a family that has this strong, unyielding approach to old customs, we still see women of the family roaming around without the traditional purdah (veil) in modern, dupatta-less clothes.

If these scenes were intended as a satirical jab, it didn’t feel like that at all, since the film sincerely, overbearingly, preached in favour of one’s elders, and the sagaciousness of their choices. But would the young people listen?

Poppa, who has no idea who he is getting hitched to, decides to stalk his intended’s house to catch a peek and, in one scene, his best chum-cum-sidekick Chu Chu (Shamyale Nasir), follow the girl to a posh boutique, where the would-be-wife’s bestie (Nazish Jahangir) — whom the young man had first bumped into at the airport when he returned to Pakistan — runs interference.

This girl, unnamed for until the second-last scene of the film, comes from a family that shares values with Poppa’s family. When the climax hits and the mystery of Poppa’s wife is revealed (any guesses on who it would turn out to be?), one realises that this girl’s actions, her liberal sense of fashion, and her unveiled roaming around go against the set-up of the premise.

Lasani and Zia are graduates from the prestigious New York Film Academy. Their first film was Gumm: In the Middle of Nowhere, a Sami Khan and Shamoon Abbasi-starrer that ripped off the Adrian Brody film Wrecked.

Their follow-up, The Windows, starring Faysal Quraishi, Hameed Sheikh and Farhan Tahir has yet to release despite reports of being completed long ago. With Poppay Ki Wedding, the filmmakers apparently chose to go with the formula that works best in Pakistan: comic shenanigans and big, loud weddings. Adhering to these keywords do not a film make.

Throughout the two-hour runtime of Poppay Ki Wedding, a word kept popping up in this writer’s mind: amateur.

As a critic, I have been fighting against the use of this word a lot recently. The filmmaking grant initiated by the government uses this term as if it is a pat on the back. From my understanding, this is a field of professionals, irrespective of whether one makes feature-length films or shorts or documentaries. The term hasn’t been used since the late 1970s; the correct and more fitting term, in this day and age, is independent filmmaker.

With Poppay Ki Wedding, however, one can’t help but resign to the fact that, for the most part, Pakistani cinema is an industry of amateurs, where few qualify as professionals (excluding Shamyale Nasir, this includes the performance of the film’s cast).

If this is the present and future state of film in the country, then it is indeed better to close shop.

Released by Hum Films, Poppay Ki Wedding is rated U and is suitable for audiences of all ages, but be warned: the film has loud, screaming performances and not much else

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 19th, 2024