Jemima Khan turns scriptwriter for U.K. rom-com as convert to arranged marriages

Screenwriter Jemima Khan.
| Photo Credit: PTI

English writer and television producer Jemima Khan has turned her hand to scriptwriting for a new rom-com What’s Love Got To Do With It? that captures her change of heart towards arranged marriages after seeing them up close during her life in Pakistan, as the ex-wife of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The film, directed by award-winning filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and released in the U.K. at the end of this month and in India early in March, charts 49-year-old Khan’s personal change of opinion to see certain merits in the seemingly unromantic consensual arrangement that brought couples together.

Over a decade in her 20s living in Pakistan, where she had her two sons Sulaiman and Kasim with Imran Khan, she saw many arranged marriages succeed and was also witness to many new ones being arranged.

Khan was married to the cricketer-turned-politician from 1995 to 2004.

“I guess the film kind of charts my own personal change of opinion over a period of 10 years, from cynicism about arranged marriage to the merits of a consensual arrangement involving introductions by parents or by people who kind of know you best,” Khan told PTI.

“At that point, I was living with my ex-husband’s entire extended family – with his sisters and their husbands and his father and all the nephews and nieces. I saw arranged marriages up close,” she said.

“Ours was the only non-arranged marriage in the entire history of quite a conservative Pathan family. And, I saw some really happy, successful long-term arranged marriages. I also saw some new arrangements taking place and was kind of almost part of that selection process,” she recalled.

The lead character in the film Zoe, played by English actor Lily James, has parallels with Khan as a documentary filmmaker who also goes through a similar journey when her childhood British Pakistani friend declares he is opting for an arranged marriage.

“I came away from Pakistan after 10 years of seeing arranged marriage in a completely different light. I think if you live in the West and you don’t experience that and see it up close, there’s a tendency to just see arranged marriage either as outdated or just plain bad because here in the West it’s very much conflated with forced marriage and there’s such a difference,” shared Khan.

After making the decision to turn her hand at creating a script that captures these cultural insights, the London-based founder of Instinct Productions admits scriptwriting was one of the “hardest things” she has done and feels her “absolute highlight” of the entire process was showing her children the finished product.

“My kids are in their twenties, half Pakistani, identify completely as Muslim and they are definitely not romcom fans. So, I was very nervous – them being my biggest critics – my stepdaughter as well. So, it was a really lovely moment when they said they were really proud; they definitely laughed and were moved by the film. I felt that was a real high point,” she smiles.

The filming process took place amid the constraints of a COVID lockdown but director Shekhar Kapur took that on as a challenge to complete the film in just over 40 days.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? was shot on location in and around London, with an English country manor in Suffolk doubling up as a Lahore palace for a traditional mehndi ceremony.

“The fear of COVID sitting behind you actually made you much more intuitive, which was a good thing. It was very challenging because of the fear that tomorrow you might have to stop filming,” said Kapur.

While the film is classed as a romantic comedy, the director behind films as varied as Elizabeth, Bandit Queen and Mr India has a different perspective. “Everybody kept telling me it’s a rom-com. But if a film falls into one slot, it becomes very boring. With Hindi films, we learn that – every film is a part romcom, part tragedy, family, musical, and emotional – life rolled into one. For me, it was a really important look during COVID times at emotions between each other and to me, it was a film about forgiveness,” he said.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?, which also stars Oscar-winning British actor Emma Thompson and award-winning Shabana Azmi in key roles, is out in U.K. cinemas on February 24 and is released in India by PVR on March 3.