Through the course of this ensemble drama from Saim Sadiq a number of serious themes will emerge about the oppression of gender traditions but he displays a lightness of touch that hooks us on gentle observation as we enter the world of a single Pakistani household.
The family is ruled by an ageing widowed patriarch (Salmaan Peerzada), whose opinions of the rest of his brood are generally strict and sour. He reserves particular opprobrium for his youngest son Haider (Ali Junejo), who is more or less functioning as a house husband while his make-up artist wife Mumtaz (Rashi Farooq) goes out to work. While at home Haider cooks, cleans and helps out his older go-getter brother Kaleem (Sohail Sameer) and wife Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) with their three - and soon to be four - young children.
The preference for boys is accentuated by Kaleem and Nucchi’s hopes for their latest.
The family is ruled by an ageing widowed patriarch (Salmaan Peerzada), whose opinions of the rest of his brood are generally strict and sour. He reserves particular opprobrium for his youngest son Haider (Ali Junejo), who is more or less functioning as a house husband while his make-up artist wife Mumtaz (Rashi Farooq) goes out to work. While at home Haider cooks, cleans and helps out his older go-getter brother Kaleem (Sohail Sameer) and wife Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) with their three - and soon to be four - young children.
The preference for boys is accentuated by Kaleem and Nucchi’s hopes for their latest.
- 2/26/2023
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Discouraged identities and taboo desires emerge tentatively into the open in “Joyland,” but unlike in a many a coming-out drama, there’s no identified villain or oppressor — just an uncertain world in its own state of societal and generational transition. Pakistani writer-director Saim Sadiq’s confident, expressive debut feature is conscientiously fair to everyone in its Lahore-set domestic melodrama of secrets, lies and unforeseen self-discovery, but never feels like it’s hedging its bets or shying away from harder truths. Tartly funny and plungingly sad in equal measure, this is nuanced, humane queer filmmaking, more concerned with the textures and particulars of its own intimate story than with grander social statements — even if, as a tale of transgender desire in a Muslim country, its very premise makes it a boundary-breaker.
As the first Pakistani production ever to unspool in the Cannes official selection, “Joyland” entered the festival as something of a milestone,...
As the first Pakistani production ever to unspool in the Cannes official selection, “Joyland” entered the festival as something of a milestone,...
- 6/10/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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