Ahmed Ali Butt and Sheheryar Munawar | ARY Films
“Shaadi, shaadi, shaadi, why are people so obsessed with weddings!?!” screams Sheheryar (Sheheryar Munawar). For a man who sneers at weddings, he sure attends a lot of them in Parey Hut Love (PHL) — director and co-writer Asim Raza’s blisteringly paced film about love and immature people.
Sheheryar, a handsome budding actor, is a rebel without a cause. A young man whose anger at the world stems from his own juvenile point of view. He wants success, but he wants it on his own terms — and he wants it right now. Sheheryar isn’t dumb. He is sensible enough to realise that making it takes time, yet he is handicapped by his own instinct and temperament.
As PHL moves from one aspect of the story to another, we see Sheheryar mature through fits and starts. His true sense of realisation and maturity, however, is not within the scope of this film, nor is it the story Raza wants to tell. Life is grand and big, and PHL is not a biopic.
Offsetting Sheheryar is his strong-willed cousin, Saniya (Maya Ali). The moment the camera looks at her for the first time, it is love at first sight for Sheheryar and the audience.
Asim Raza’s Parey Hut Love is a perfectly orchestrated piece of cinema, where every aspect — from swelling music cues to character arcs, cinematography, production and sound design — work in utter, immaculate harmony
Raza, whose last film Ho Mann Jahaan (HMJ) was an adequate time-filler, has grown by leaps and bounds as a filmmaker. Few, if any in Pakistan, know how to technically manipulate the ambience of every shot for optimum emotional blackmail.
Raza, with deft, signature-wielding idiosyncratic flourishes that distinguish his work in advertisements and commercials, has somehow mastered the art of cinematically blackmailing emotions. PHL manipulates one’s reactions scene-by-scene, if not shot-by-shot, leading them by the leash towards specific sentiments. The film is a perfectly orchestrated piece of cinema, where every aspect — from swelling music cues to character arcs, cinematography, production and sound design — work in utter, immaculate harmony.
Imran Aslam’s story, inspired by Four Weddings and a Funeral, is broken down into four chapters. Each is a wedding with a precise tone, especially where characters are concerned.
Superficially, the story works on a ‘masses’ level. One doesn’t need deep insight to follow the journey of the characters. Subtexts in dialogues and actions are niftily tucked a layer beneath the glossy exterior of the film. It is there, if one chooses to look for it.
Both Sheheryar and Saniya are a heaven-made pair. Saniya, being more sensible, just calculatingly makes different mistakes than Sheheryar. At one moment in the story (shown in the trailer), she introduces her fiancé (Shahbaz Shigri) to Sheheryar. Later in the film, at an emotional highpoint, her fiancé literally questions the rationale of her decisions. Matters of the heart aren’t governed by calculated life decisions, he tells her.
Both leads are surrounded by people more intelligent than them. Saniya’s dad (played by Nadeem Baig) is a famed screenwriter from the golden age of movies, who returns to Pakistan to put pen to paper once again. Arshad and Shabbo (Ahmed Ali Butt, Zara Noor Abbas — a fantastic, mesmerising pair), are Sheheryar’s best buddies — an aspiring director and his production assistant. His other two buddies are Tanaaz and Rustom (Rachel Viccaji, Faheem Azam; the latter has brilliant comedic timing). Hina Dilpazeer and Munawar Alam Siddiqui play his parents — a mum with a tragic past, who is also the film’s comedic support, and a stepdad who genuinely loves his bratty son. And — lest I forget — there is Mahira Khan as well, in a role.
To be honest, I think we are living in a new trend in movies, where stories revolve round cinema, assistant directors, struggling actors, immature youngsters, estranged parents, a mom who is an actress, and a lack of inner peace. When one thinks about it, there is quite a bit of similarity in two of the three films playing this Eid.
Imran Aslam’s story, inspired by Four Weddings and a Funeral, is broken down into four chapters. Each is a wedding with a precise ambiatic tone, especially when characters are concerned.
Seemingly, the two stories sound similar; they are not.