I recently decided to watch “London Nahi Jaonga” with my friends even after hearing multiple negative reviews. We thought to ourselves how bad can it possibly be? The answer to that: it was horrible. As the movie began and the introductions were rolling, there came up on the screen “Written by: Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar”. My friend and I simultaneously sighed in disgust and said “aye haye”, realizing that were in for a long time.
Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar is known for his misogyny which is portrayed in many of his dramas and movies. This movie was supposed to be one that gave answers to the people who think he's a misogynist. However, while we can see how they did try to portray a feminist angle to the movie, they did a horrible job at it. Along with that, the movie consisted of many instances which confirmed my stance on him as a misogynist even more.
There movie has Humayun Saeed, Mehwish Hayat and Kubra Khan as the lead actors. Humayun Saeed is shown as a bachelor and Kubra Khan is in love with him. The starting scene of the movie shows a dog race in which Humayun Saeed loses a bet, so he has to get engaged to Kubra Khan. Firstly, that whole concept is just messed up but afterwards, he goes to his father and tells him that he doesn’t want to marry a local girl, he wants to marry a foreign girl for some reason. Then enters Mehwish Hayat, a girl from London. She just randomly shows up to Humayun Saeed’s house, crashes the engagement and clearly also doesn’t know about the concept of personal boundaries. She asks them to give her a house tour (keeping in mind that she’s a random stranger), and during the tour also grabs Humayun Saeed by his collar and pulls him close to her and says some cringe dialogues. The movie is full of inappropriate dialogues, such as when he sees Mehwish Hayat wearing a crop top, he’s staring at her and then proceeds to say ke “Andar wali skin zyada gori hai”. There are also a few instances in the movie where they refer to Pakistani dogs and “Pakistan ki Ku**iyan” which at times has double meanings. Moreover, Humayun Saeed is now in love with Mehwish Hayat and clearly does not know what the word no means. He continues to pursue her after she told him she didn't want him multiple times - not taking no for an answer which leads to borderline harassment as he even follows her to London. Moving on, the movie contains many other uncomfortable dialogues such as contemplating whether a hug between two friends was a “sexy hug or not”. There is another scene where Mehwish Hayat slaps Humayun Saeed, and he proceeds to say “tera thappar tumhari marzi” which seemed to be a dig at the slogan “mera jism meri marzi”.
While the main storyline tries to normalize girls falling in love and love marriages for them and breaking the taboo in society in which it's okay for men to fall in love but not for women, there are so many subtle instances of misogyny, harassment, and sexism that it completely makes their efforts void.