SUNDANCE23 REVIEW: جوائے لینڈ [Joyland] [2022]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 126 minutes
Release Date: November 18th, 2022 (Pakistan) / April 7th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Director(s): Saim Sadiq
Writer(s): Saim Sadiq & Maggie Briggs

Sometimes I feel like I have nothing that’s my own.

You might assume the reason the Pakistani government reversed course and banned Saim Sadiq’s Joyland, despite the censor board certifying it (and the film ultimately becoming the country’s Oscar submission, landing on the shortlist), was solely because it depicts a romantic relationship between a man and a trans woman. The right wing campaign against its release specifically called out this detail as a focal point for why it was “against Pakistani values”, but anyone who watches the movie will understand this rhetoric was intentionally chosen to deflect from a more subtle problem: headstrong characters drowning beneath the repressive nature of a patriarchal culture that are desperate to break free.

Because this isn’t just Haider’s (Ali Junejo) story. It’s not just a look at the shy, closeted gay, youngest son of a domineering father (Salmaan Peerzada) stumbling upon a new world affording him escape from oppressive conventions. His trajectory is crucial (and perhaps ignites everything that occurs), but Sadiq and Maggie Briggs’ script delivers so much more. There’s Haider’s wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq), a woman promised to be able to continue her career aspirations and not simply become a mother upon marriage. There’s Haider’s sister-in-law Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani), about to give birth to her fourth child in husband Saleem’s (Sameer Sohail) quest for a son. And, of course, Biba (Alina Khan), the trans woman Haider falls in love with after taking a job as her background dancer.

Add Sania Saeed’s neighbor Fayyaz and we find ourselves watching four women of whom society treats as invisible. Women stripped of autonomy either through marriage, motherhood, or postcolonial taboo. And with them is a man whose own identity has been threatened by slurs and rumor to the point where his father quips that perhaps he isn’t up to the task of conceiving a child with a woman. The reason Haider becomes our entry point, however—beyond being the connective tissue between the others’ worlds—is a byproduct of his being a man and thus in possession of the privilege to act selfishly at the detriment of those around him. Because while he remains sympathetic, he also refuses to comprehend the damage he creates by always centering his needs first.

Joyland ultimately proves itself to be about complicity. The ways in which our silence allows for the systematic dismantling of another’s chance to be free. Haider finally getting a job (not that he can admit what it is) shouldn’t mean the instantaneous end to Mumtaz’s independence. Maybe it wouldn’t if he stood up for her. Fayyaz finding herself stranded at Haider and Saleem’s home because everyone was out and she offered to care for their father (she often brings him food and company in the years since her husband’s death) shouldn’t result in her being punished with house arrest due to what their community “might say” about potential behind-closed-doors indiscretions. Maybe it wouldn’t if Peerzada had her back. The last hour unfolds with an escalating series of such moments, each victim crying for help with their eyes only to be let down by someone diverting theirs to the floor.

It’s why Biba is so inspiring. She refuses to let anyone dictate who she is or what she is capable of doing. So, when she assumes she has an ally in Haider, it’s easy to fall in love. Where this love would blossom and give the middle finger to society in an agenda-driven LGBTQ romance, her unwavering agency has no problem kicking him to the curb the moment that allyship is revealed as having certain conditions here. Don’t therefore expect any happy endings. Not when each potential road towards one exists with the sort of complexity that ensures one party’s joy demands another’s compromise (or, worse, suppression). Because the moment you let doctrine decide purpose, you’ve already lost. A simple “I do” suddenly becomes a defeated “I will” until escape itself shifts from being a hopeful pursuit forward to a solemn release towards oblivion.