Miss Flicks

The Queen of My Dreams: LFF Review

Like I lot of people, I discovered Amrit Kaur in The Sex Lives of College Girls, in which she plays my favourite character Bela Malhotra, so I couldn’t resist watching her new movie The Queen of My Dreams.

She plays Azra Malik, a Pakistani-Canadian student who is studying to become an actor in Toronto in 1999. She has had a strained relationship with her mum Mariam (Nimra Bucha) for many years. She is forced to confront this when they reunite in Pakistan after her father dies.

This film is based on the play Me, My Mom & Sharmila and the short film, also titled The Queen of My Dreams. It is set across two timelines – we have Azra’s story in 1999 and young Mariam’s story back in Karachi in 1969. Kaur plays both parts. This is jarring at first but it soon becomes really obvious thanks to the different colour palettes (the ’60s are bright and colourful while the ’90s are more muted) and the fashion.

The reason for her dual role becomes increasingly apparent as the timelines play out. Azra and Mariam are more alike than they realise – both felt suffocated and misunderstood by their mothers and used deception to live the lives they wanted.

At first, Kaur’s role seemed very close to Bela but she soon showed off her range. I was particularly taken by her emotional present-day scenes in which she’s mourning the death of her dad. The most meaningful moments were the unspoken ones where her eyes and face showed just how heartbroken she is.

The highlights of the film were the dream sequences in which Azra or Mariam imagined themselves inside a Bollywood movie in the role portrayed by Indian actress Sharmila Tagore. Mariam was obsessed with Tagore growing up and she passed this onto her daughter. These dream sequences were so much fun and put such a smile on my face.

My main issue with the film was that it wrapped up too quickly. I wanted and needed a deeper conversation between Azra and Mariam and I was very disappointed we didn’t get that. It didn’t offer sufficient closure and I felt really unsatisfied.

I enjoyed the film as a whole, even though it didn’t achieve the depth it needed. Kaur is still amazing though!

Competing in the First Feature Competition at the London Film Festival