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Discouraged identities and taboo desires emerge tentatively into the open in \u201cJoyland,\u201d but unlike in a many a coming-out drama, there\u2019s no identified villain or oppressor \u2014 just an uncertain world in its own state of societal and generational transition. Pakistani writer-director Saim Sadiq\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u2014 even if, as a tale of transgender desire in a Muslim country, its very premise makes it a boundary-breaker.<\/p>\n
As the first Pakistani production ever to unspool in the Cannes official selection, \u201cJoyland\u201d entered the festival as something of a milestone, but proved an immediate crowdpleaser on its own flavorful merits, landing the runner-up Grand Prix in Un Certain Regard and besting Lukas Dhont\u2019s Competition breakout \u201cClose\u201d to the Queer Palme award. Extensive future festival play and arthouse distribution are assured, and not just in the LGBTQ bracket \u2014 at a time when transgender lives and rights are very much in the public discourse, the film\u2019s fresh, sympathetic cultural perspective on the subject gives it universal currency.<\/p>\n
At its heart, however, this is a gently observed, honestly felt family story, not out to speak for any demographic as a whole, and benefiting considerably from the warm, slightly disheveled charm of screen novice Ali Junejo in the lead. He plays Haider, the scrappy younger son of the Rana family, a hard-up, fractious but close-knit clan occupying the same extended townhouse in central Lahore. A handsome, imaginative daydreamer who hasn\u2019t yet found his calling in life, he has taken a wife \u2014 smart, self-sufficient Mumtaz (a superb Rasti Farooq) \u2014 but otherwise hasn\u2019t fulfilled the expectations of his conservative father (Salmaan Peerzada).<\/p>\n
Unlike his alpha-male older brother Kaleem (Sohail Sameer) \u2014 expecting his fourth child with wife Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani), and hoping for his first son \u2014 Haider and Mumtaz remain childless, while he hasn\u2019t held a job in years. Instead, Haider contentedly plays homemaker (and playful childminder to his three nieces) while Mumtaz assumes the breadwinner role \u2014 not the only way in which their mutually affectionate but passionless marriage defies social convention. When he does eventually find employment through a friend, it\u2019s not the traditionally respectable kind: Despite no great gifts in the terpsichorean department, he\u2019s hired as a backing dancer for trans female performer Biba (Alina Khan) at a local nightclub.<\/p>\n
Billed as an \u201cerotic\u201d venue, the club\u2019s booty-shaking floor shows aren\u2019t exactly eyebrow-raising by western standards: Indeed, the film\u2019s brightly staged, sequin-spangled, Bollywood-meets-RuPaul dance numbers are bouncy highlights. Still, it\u2019s sufficiently scandalous that Haider lies about his job to his family, claiming he\u2019s merely a stage manager. Also strictly secret, needless to say, is his increasingly close bond with Biba, who teaches him to loosen both his hips and his sensibilities \u2014 though as things turn intimate, his naive preconceptions about sexuality come gauchely between them. Sadiq\u2019s wry, intelligent script doesn\u2019t treat their relationship as some kind of revelatory, cure-all lightning bolt, but rather as a litmus test for all that this caring but confused young man has yet to learn about himself and others.<\/p>\n
It helps that Biba herself is treated as a full, careworn character once out of the silvery spotlight. Expanding upon a role that she initiated in Sadiq\u2019s Venice-winning 2019 blueprint short \u201cDarling,\u201d trans actor Khan is terrific, leavening proceedings when required with suitably diva-esque saltiness, but also revealing the variously layered defense mechanisms required to survive as a trans woman in a broadly unaccepting, sternly patriarchal and religiously bound society. No female character is glibly drawn in \u201cJoyland,\u201d for that matter. Even when not in the protagonist\u2019s orbit, Mumtaz and Nucchi have inner lives and urges of their own \u2014 mutually finding release, in one lovely scene, at a gaudy fluorescent fairground that lends the film its title.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just in such candy-colored environs, however, that up-and-coming DP Joe Saade (\u201cBroken Keys,\u201d \u201cCosta Brava, Lebanon\u201d) seeks luminescence. Even ostensibly drab domestic scenes are marked by gleaming jewel tones \u2014 the palette seemingly taking its cue from the heavily dyed silks of the women\u2019s wardrobe \u2014 and shimmering light-play, a visual suggestion of the richer lives sought by everyone in this yearning drama. Even in Biba\u2019s shabby apartment, a cheap neon-green LED light takes on magical properties in one tender scene, its tacky beams skittering across lovers\u2019 faces like a shifting constellation. Sadiq\u2019s visual wit is never more apparent, meanwhile, than in the image of Haider ferrying a giant cardboard standee of Biba across town on his moped: a trans woman literally larger than life, defiantly taking up space against the night sky.<\/p>\n
View this article at Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Joyland\u2019 Review: Unexpected Trans-Cis Romance Blossoms in a Luminous Pakistani Crowdpleaser: Discouraged identities and taboo desires emerge tentatively into the open in \u201cJoyland,\u201d but unlike in a many a coming-out drama, there\u2019s no identified villain or oppressor \u2014 just an uncertain world in its own state of societal and generational transition. Pakistani writer-director Saim Sadiq\u2019s
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