What Will People Say (2017)

Sixteen year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager. When her father... See full summary »

Director:

Iram Haq

Writers:

Iram Haq, Jaideep Yadav (script translator)

Stars:

Maria Mozhdah, Adil Hussain, Ekavali Khanna

13 wins & 11 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Maria Mozhdah	...	Nisha
Adil Hussain	...	Mirza
Ekavali Khanna	...	Mother Najma
Rohit Saraf	...	Amir
Ali Arfan	...	Asif
Sheeba Chaddha	...	Aunt
Lalit Parimoo	...	Uncle
Jannat Zubair Rahmani	...	Salima
Isak Lie Harr	...	Daniel
Nokokure Dahl	...	Emily
Eliza Raja	...	Ameena
Farrukh Jaffar	...	Bestemor
Naeem Azam	...	Amjad
Assad Siddique	...	Abdullah
Trine Wiggen	...	Social worker

Storyline

Sixteen year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager. When her father catches her in bed with her boyfriend, Nisha's two worlds brutally collide. To set an example, Nisha's parents decide to kidnap her and place her with relatives in Pakistan. Here, in a country she has never been to before, Nisha is forced to adapt to her parents' culture.

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Plot Keywords:

written by director | pakistani | pakistani immigrant | immigrant | pakistani culture | 

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Taglines:

Sent to a country she's never known... she must risk everything to break free.

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Norway Germany Sweden France Denmark

Language:

Urdu Norwegian

Release Date:

13 July 2018 (USA)

Also Known As:

What Will People Say

Filming Locations:

Norway

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,024, 15 July 2018, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$44,156, 1 November 2018

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mer Film,Rohfilm Factory GmbH,Zentropa International Sweden

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Color:

Color (DCP)

Did You Know?

Trivia

Official submission of Norway for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 91st Academy Awards in 2019.

User Reviews

An Indian attempt to look Pakistani

The movie starts with a Pakistani family living in Norway in a very traditional way, with their daughter being quite Norwegian. This was so far so good until the girl is sent to Pakistan (read India), for getting caught with a boy in her bedroom. The city was meant to look like Quetta, a city close to the border of Afghanistan, the capital of Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan,. But seemed to look more like Dehli than any Pakistani city. Quetta is quite rocky in its landscape, it is bowled shape city, with hilly covering the city from all directions, without any grenery whatsoever. The actors were indian. Their accents were like anything but of Pakistani's, their vocabulary was not how the people of Quetta speak, but what the "Indians" supposedly think the entire speaks. E.g. no one calls it "Panipuri" but "gol gappay". There have been moments when a Hindi word was used, also a scene in which a sign board in Hindi was visible. It was very hard for me to finish the movie, seeing the Indians trying to pretend to be Pakistanis. Everytime I tried to connect to the movie, something Indian pinched me, and it's sting got only more and more painful. It's not that these things do not happen in Pakistan. But the director should have come to Pakistan and at least get in touch with a local, (it's not that difficult to do so) or just make the story about an Indian girl. It's the same thing. Otherwise this movie is downright offensive. The plot was ok, it is pretty similar to (if not borrowed from) a Pakistani movie "Khuda kay liye" "In the name of God". The movie lacked continuity of events, as a lot of things were implicit, which I believe should have been presented in a better way.

So no Thankyou.