Joyland

While we have had our fair share of very compelling pieces of LGBTQ cinema recently with such titles as Of an Age, The Blue Caftan, Port Authority, and Lingua Franca, to name a few, they never quite reach the intricate heights found in Joyland. Emotionally piercing, always enthralling, and deeply moving, this Pakistani drama, that is one-part marital movie, another part family drama, and lastly a trans romance story that involves a cis-gender man falling in love with a transgender woman is depicted in some very bold and honest ways. All of the emotionally charged drama and captivating storytelling is bolstered well by Pakistani co-writer and director Saim Sadiq in his extraordinary debut feature. Winner of the Queer Palm Award during its premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and winner of the Best International Film at the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards, the film feels like a mix of Pedro Almodovar and Douglas Sirk meets John Cassavetes. The film will inevitably find its audience and will certainly be considered a treasure in the years to come.

The film’s setting is the Pakistani inner-city of Lahore, and the film follows a very traditional family that is headed by strict patriarch Rana Amanullah (Peerza), a recent widower who is looked after by his elder son Saleem (Sohail Sameer) and his wife Nucci (Sarwat), along with his youngest son Haider (Ali Junejo) and his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq). Rana is very bitter that he doesn’t have any grandchildren as of yet. Saleem and Nucci have produced four children, all daughters. Rana is always pressuring Haider to try having a child with Mumtaz. Rana is also pressuring him to be the breadwinner too, as Mumtaz works as a self-sustaining makeup artist. Rana urges Haider to get work and to allow Mumtaz to stay at home and do the daily chores and take care of Saleem’s work.

Haider hasn’t had a job in some time. He often does the family chores and looks after Rana, who has a difficult time walking and getting around. He ends up granting his father’s wishes and looking for work after stumbling upon rehearsals as a background dancer for an erotic trans woman performer named Biba (Alina Khan), who performs at variety shows and cabarets. She’s looking for backup dancers for her upcoming act and is billed below the cisgender performance. After a very stiff audition, he still ends up getting the job because Biba can see passion within. Of course, he has to keep this from his father, and he tells him he’s a theater manager instead of a dancer.

Haider ends up being open that he is working under a trans woman after bringing a huge cardboard cutout of her that he keeps on the roof. His wife and daughter-in-law compliment her beauty, and Rana ends up finding out the woman in cardboard is Biba and is a trans woman, he ends up having Rana place a sheet over it. You can see years of repression being revealed in the most subtle and eventually most explizit ways. For instance, Haider has a challenging time cutting a goat’s throat, that Mumtax has no hesitation in doing. We also see Haider become less stiff, more freely liberated, and he ends up out dancing his male counterparts. Haider is also very drawn into Biba. Eventually he ends up falling in love with her and their romance is depicted with a fascinating tenderness that is rarely seen in a film about a cister man falling for a trans woman. Sadiq and co-writer Maggie Briggs bring modern sensibilities to the story. There is no “reveal” moment, and Haider feels no shame for his attraction towards Biba.

He’s so in awe with her energy and presence–her talent, charisma, and beauty–you can sense this is a man who is very attractive to her that he doesn’t seem to mind being teased about his clear attraction to her by his fellow dancers or even of his wife finding out. He comes home during late hours, in which he goes out to the alley and possibly Fantasies about Biba as Mumtaz observes in secret with binoculars with a voyeuristic fetish. Even when Biba faces public transphobia on a subway, which is segregated by gender, an older woman tells Biba to move to the male section. Biba doesn’t move places as she continues to get scorned by the woman, only for Haider to cross the train and sit in the middle between them. It’s a very poignant moment in the film that doesn’t feel heavy-handed. And just when you think the film is going to be this empowering film about loving who you want in a suppressed society, Sadiq takes the film into a very intricate direction about sexuality and self-discovery. Sadiq explores the male gaze–especially how difficult it is for trans women who are often objectified by men who treat them as fetishes or use objectification to uphold bi-curiosities or Fantasies. It’s relieving to have a film that explores the dynamics between cisgender and trans relationships that explores these complexities in fresh and open ways.

The greatness of Joyland can be seen in many levels. The character depth is multidimensional here, and every character is given a lot of humanity and complexity that feels greatly detailed and vivid. And, to his strength, Sadiq crafts a very exquisite film that holds a large array of impressive camerawork and impressive visuals by cinematographer Joe Saade. One of the most striking visual scenes in the film is how Sadiq stages a two shot between Biba and Haider looking deep into each other’s eyes as they hold back their attraction and desires. There are many moments throughout that elevates Joyland into a complex and precise exploration of one man’s awakening. The film is also evocative and mesmerizing in how it examines prolonged repressions and the unyielding self-destruction. Too often individuals conform to satisfy society’s collective social norms and prejudices, and it not only creates harm to the individual, but to others around them. There is always a staggering cost to be found with deception. For his first feature, Sadiq and co-writer deserve high marks for making a film that explores and ponders these conundrums instead of making some routine heavy-handed film about tolerance.