Polite Society Plot Summary
Polite Society is a fun little comedy as it parodies the usual spy action films. We have Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) an aspiring teen stuntwoman who loves her sister, Lena (Ritu Arya) and dreams about them being an independent and kickass duo. But fate has something else planned as Lena catches the eye of the rich and charming Salim Shah whose mother, Raheela has been looking for the perfect bride.
While Lena and the Khans fall for Salim, Ria is the only one who thinks something sinister is afoot. This leads to hijinks and chaos as the wannabe martial artist plans a heist to kidnap her sister from her own wedding.
Was Ria right about Salim and Raheela?
At the beginning of Polite Society, when Raheela invites the Khans for an Eid soiree to her place, a bored Ria starts exploring their house. Something feels off but she cannot put her finger on it. She ends up in a study and there on the desk, she sees rows upon rows of photographs of young women including Lena’s.
This is enough evidence for her to consider the Shahs as evil. But no matter how hard she tries she cannot convince her family as Lena falls in love with Salim and plans to marry him. And so begins Ria’s plan to find some dirt on Salim.
When she fails, she decides to make up something and breaks into the Shah’s house. She ends up finding a box in Salim’s bedroom with a wedding photograph of him and another woman. When she’s caught, Salim easily explains it as his ex-wife, Huda who died in childbirth.
A grounded Ria is told to go to the Shahs and apologise but Raheela has other plans. Calling it a spa day, she ends up torturing Ria through a waxing session as she gloats on how the teenager will not be able to stop the wedding. Ria realises that she was right all along and as she fights the attendants, she finds herself hiding in a secret lab. It is the same lab where Salim has been doing secret tests on Lena.
The room is filled with the DNA of all the women who were at the Eid soiree. Ria also realises that at the entrance, they were all secretly scanned through which the Shahs figured out that Lena had the strongest womb. Ria also spots two cryo chambers and deduces that the Shahs plan to use Lena’s genes to make a superbaby.
She is wrong about that last part which she finds out at the wedding. Pretending to be on board with the idea, she tries to kidnap Lena but fails. She is locked in alone with Raheela who reveals her evil plan.
Raheela was upset that her father got her married the moment she became an adult, shutting off any possibility for her to do anything with her life. She and Salim want to use Lena’s body as a vessel to create her own clone through whom Raheela can then live a better life.
What is Ria’s plan to save Lena?
Ria ropes in her friends and classmates, Alba, Clare and Kovacs to help with her plan. Kovacs is to be the getaway driver while Alba and Clare are disguised as waiters at the wedding. Ria distracts everyone by dancing to the song ‘Maar Daala’ which ironically means ‘killed me’. While Raheela is wondering what Ria is up to, Lena is left all alone in her suite with just one guard outside.
Clare and Alba use that moment to enter by claiming that Raheela has ordered tea for Lena. She, however, recognises Ria’s friends but they quickly chloroform her till she blacks out. They hide her underneath the table and almost make it out but Raheela ends up holding Lena hostage. Clare and Alba are forced to return Lena to Raheela who takes her to the dias to get her immediately married to Salim.
But all hope is not lost as Kovacs who has been waiting outside breaks in, defeats the guard and frees Ria, Clare and Alba. They take the guard’s gun and stop the wedding. But with Ria distracted while trying to explain the whole situation to Lena, Raheela takes the gun from her. At that moment, the girls’ mother, Fatima comes through and attacks Raheela with a chair.
With the gun thrown to the side, chaos ensues as the guests attack the sisters at Raheela’s command. The classmates take Lena’s veil and act as bait while the sisters almost get away. Raheela and Salim intercept them at Kovacs’ car. However, Ria is finally able to defeat Raheela by successfully pulling off the flying reverse spin kick while Lena uses the moment to take Salim down.
What happened with Salim’s ex-wife, Huda?
With Salim having a reputation for being a womaniser, Ria breaks into his house and tries to plant used condoms to make Lena break up with him. In the middle of her plan, she comes across a box in which she sees a wedding photo of Salim and a woman named Huda.
She thinks he has a second wife but when she is caught and asks for an explanation, Salim reveals the truth. Huda was his first wife but she died of a heart attack while going through labour. During the final showdown at the wedding, Salim comes clean that Huda had indeed been impregnated with Raheela’s clone. But since she was weak, she died.
Do Ria and Lena patch up?
While the sisters are initially close, they drift apart as Lena starts dating Salim. Ria is unhappy that Salim is changing her sister but doesn’t even know much about her. Lena, their parents and her friends, on the other hand, think that Ria is jealous. After Ria stalks Salim at the gym to get his laptop, Lena is furious and they have a physical fight which ends with broken mirrors and stitches.
Lena declares that if Ria cannot be happy for her, she should stay away. However, at the wedding, they patch up as Ria pretends to be alright with the marriage. It also doesn’t take much to sway Lena to her side when the truth is revealed as Lena remembers glimpses of the time Salim drugged her and tested her.
Does Eunice Huthart ever respond?
Throughout Polite Society, Ria keeps emailing her role model Eunice Huthart (a real-life stuntwoman who became famous for being Angelina Jolie’s stunt double) but she never responds. It starts off with career week as her school asks the students to work with someone from a field they are interested in. Ria’s teachers and parents claim that stunt work is not a serious profession and try to deter her as Eunice has never responded to any of her emails.
Ria’s emails go from formal correspondence to a sort of diary as she details her dreams and struggles. Lena is the only one who is supportive and believes that Eunice will one day respond. In the end, Ria gives up hope but is not upset as she believes Eunice just may be too busy. But to her delight, at the end of the movie, Eunice finally writes back to Ria and tells her to keep up the good work.
Read More: Polite Society Movie Review