POLITE SOCIETY

Here's the decision. Nida Manzoor has made a genuinely funny, well-acted action comedy that borrows a little Jane Austen and a lot of energy — and at its heart is something worth honoring: a younger sister who loves her older sister enough to risk everything for her.

But this one earns its PG-13 hard. There are more than 40 obscenities, a strong Jesus profanity, martial-arts violence with real bite, male nudity, an implied sleepover between an engaged couple, and a worldview that prizes personal dreams and career over marriage. The comic tone even cracks in the middle when the two sisters brawl brutally.

So here's the answer: if you're an adult who enjoys this kind of British comedy, this is one to catch at home, where you can weigh the content on your own terms. It was never made for children or young teens — choose something else for them.

Ria is a high schooler from a Pakistani Muslim family in Britain with one dream: to become a Hollywood stuntwoman. She trains in martial arts and films the moves for her social channel, cheered on by her older sister Lena, who has quietly given up her own dream of being an artist.

Then Lena starts seeing Salim — a handsome, wealthy young doctor with an overbearing mother. When the two get engaged after only a month, Ria is furious that her sister is abandoning her ambitions. She sets out to sabotage the wedding. But something about Salim and his mother doesn't smell right.

Three stars, and mostly earned. This is a funny, sometimes hilarious action comedy, and it's carried by its cast. Priya Kansara is delightful as the younger sister; her three friends and classmates are a hoot; and Ritu Arya is great as the older sister. The Austen-flavored setup has real charm.

The trouble is the twists. The plot takes some crazy, strange turns, and the strangest is a mid-film scene where the two sisters get into a terrible fight — the older sister smashes the younger one's head into a glass-framed wall photo three times. It's too tough for the tone, and it nearly destroys the light, comical spirit the movie spent its first half building. A very good film that fights against its own best instincts.

Polite Society believes, above all, that girls and young women should not give up on their personal dreams — and it says, less credibly, that career matters more than marriage. That last claim simply isn't true, and it's the film's central distortion. To its credit, the movie often plays these ideas for comedy: Ria and her friends work themselves into a lather shouting against "the patriarchy," and Ria's father lists the benefits of the marriage as if closing a business deal. The plot even undercuts its own slogans — the real villain turns out to be a domineering matriarch, and it takes Ria and her female friends to stop her.

The film's Muslim setting shapes its language. Female characters invoke Allah and say "Allah willing" in Arabic — a fatalism unlike the Christian's trusting relationship with a Creator and Savior God. Against that, one small light: a white Christian teenager prays briefly to the "Heavenly Father" for strength, and there are even song lyrics about redemption.

For all its noise, the story's engine is love — a younger sister who will do anything to rescue her older sister from a family with ulterior motives. That loyalty is where the film brushes against Scripture's own vision of family love: "A brother is born for adversity" (Proverbs 17:17). What the movie can't quite see is that a life poured out for another finds its truest meaning not in a dream fulfilled but in love itself — the love that lays itself down (John 15:13).

Manzoor has made a funny, warmhearted comedy about a sister's love — wrapped in language, violence, and ideas that push it well past the family-movie shelf. So here's our answer, the same one we opened with: wait for home — adults only. Looking for something the whole family can enjoy tonight instead? Start with our latest family-friendly picks.