KARACHI: Although the event was familiar, the setting was distinct. The red carpet area for the premiere of the film Load Wedding on Tuesday night (chand raat) at a local multiplex was given the look of a wedding ceremony. The entire zone was decorated with strings of flowers. Even the invitation card to the programme read that the baraat would arrive at 8pm and the nikah would take place at 9pm. Well, they did. Sort of.

This meant that the guests (cinema lovers and the ubiquitous showbiz media) would be treated as the baraatis and the cast and crew of the film would be the two parties at centre stage. Something like that…

The bottom-line is: it was a nice little setup.

The one praiseworthy thing that’s happening of late is that film premieres are attended by not just those who are part of the film being screened, but by a decent number of members of the entertainment industry. It happened with Jawani Phir Nahi Ani 2’s media night when a good number of actors and technicians came to support the project, and no different was the situation with Load Wedding. Khaled Anam, Sahira Kazmi, Humayun Saeed, Frieha Altaf etc were there to see what rabbit, this time around, film-maker Nabeel Qureshi had pulled out of his hat. The director, before Load Wedding, had made three box office hits — Na Maloom Afraad, Actor-in-Law and Na Maloom Afraad 2.

Sharing his views with Dawn on the current trend of romantic comedies and the conjecture that his new project too was one Qureshi said, “We [him and producer Fizza Ali Mirza] make films that we feel like making. It’s not a romcom per se … it’s more of a social family drama. It wouldn’t be right to call it a romantic comedy.”

Describing the difference between his previous ventures and this one, Qureshi said its story and the locale are different — the film is shot against the backdrop of Punjab.

Load Wedding narrates the tale of a character named Raja (Fahad Mustafa). He is in love with Meerab (Mehwish Hayat) from the time he laid his eyes on her as a very young boy, but his taciturn disposition and fate (his father’s death) don’t allow him to express what he feels for her. Meerab gets married to someone else, but she too receives a setback as her husband dies. This re-ignites hope in Raja that he could tie the knot with Meerab now, but he has a churlish, burly older sister (Faiza Hassan) who is single and his mother (Samina Ahmed) is desperate to get her married off. And when the chance of getting the sister hitched does come along, after longish episodes of running after easy money by trying their luck on a TV show, things go topsy-turvy.

Anyone who has seen the previous three films made by Qureshi, and this one, can figure out that the young man is a kind-hearted person with a strong middle-class upbringing. All of his films touch on social issues with feather touches of comedy. In Load Wedding, sensitive subjects such as the position of a widow in our society and the scourge of dowry are in focus. Qureshi’s intentions are pure and his execution of the story is fine. He has this knack of creating tender moments out of heavy and sometimes mushy circumstances. He, as far as the current state of Pakistani cinema goes, is in a league of his own.

My only grouse with the film is that it has two separate halves. He seems to be underlining the latter in which the issue of dowry is put under the scanner, whereas in terms of visual appeal, sensitivity of subject matter and flurry of emotion, the first half (in which the plight of a widow in our society is highlighted) is more powerful. The second half comes across, at times but not always, as a bit of a stretch.

Two actors need to be mentioned here for their quality work: Qaiser Piya as Nazir, Raja’s friend, and Faiza Hassan who plays the baji. One more thing: Fahad Mustafa has cried so many times in the film that one needs to check whether it’s a record of sorts — the hero crying X number of times in a movie that is a little over two hours long.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2018