Time: 127 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Sexual material, suicide, offensive language & content that may disturb
Cast:
Ali Junejo as Haider
Rasti Farooq as Mumtaz
Alina Khan as Biba
Sarwat Gilani as Nucchi
Director: Saim Sadiq

I checked out Joyland after hearing that it was a good movie, it was even Pakistan’s 2023 entry for the Oscars. Having seen it, I can say that it definitely lived up to all the acclaim.

The movie is a portrait of self discovery; it is definitely a sad story, but is made with a lot of empathy, particularly for its characters. It is impressive with how many complex subject matters it attempts to tackle, including sexual and gender politics and prejudices (mainly with misogyny, transphobia and homophobia. It also looks at the effects of a patriarchal society, especially in such a religious and conservative country, and how it punishes everyone. The third act is unfortunately very abrupt; one character’s story ends very abruptly and just sort of disappears from the rest of the movie. I do feel like that this came as a consequence of trying to tackle so many different things, to the point where the movie had to quickly drop off one of the main storylines before resolving the rest of it. That is definitely one of my biggest issues with the movie, just the way that was handled. While the attempt at covering multiple subject matters is admirable, there’s so much in here that despite it being just over 2 hours, it doesn’t go in depth with as many of its elements and themes as it should’ve. It probably should’ve been closer to 3 hours.

Joyland has some amazing performances. Ali Junejo is great in the lead role and conveys his character really well. However it is Alina Khan and Rasti Farooq who are the standouts, Khan is particularly fantastic.

This is a very impressive directorial debut from Saim Sadiq. It’s very well shot and nice to look at, vibrant with great use of colour, yet still feels very down to earth. 

Joyland is a very good drama, greatly directed, beautifully shot, and with some stellar performances from Ali Junejo, Alina Khan and Rasti Farooq.