The distance between queer, Canadian-born aspiring actor Azra (Amrit Kaur) and her conservative mother, Mariam (Nimra Bucha), seems increasingly unbridgeable. Then a tragedy brings the family back together on a trip to Pakistan, and mother and daughter’s mutual love of Bollywood cinema provides a common language and the key to their reconciliation.
This peppy first feature by Fawzia Mirza has a boisterous energy and toe-tapping use of music reminiscent of Maryam Keshavarz’s similarly themed, Sundance audience award-winning The Persian Version (released earlier this year). Both are unabashed crowd-pleasers; both deal with mother-daughter tension in immigrant families; both enthusiastically pillage pop-cultural references. This aspect of The Queen of My Dreams is the most engaging. Flashbacks to Mariam’s technicolour youth in 1969 Karachi are gorgeously realised, and the design department (in particular wardrobe) gets to revel in an eye-popping kaleidoscope of primary hues.
