The Queen of My Dreams

This peppy first feature by Fawzia Mirza has a boisterous energy and toe-tapping use of music reminiscent of Maryam Keshavarz’s similarly themed, Sundance audience award-winning The Persian Version.

Kaur really is the film’s revelation: her Azra is funny, spiky and gloriously unruly.

What lifts Mirza’s film above the pack is that it is alive with colour and music, her characters are endearing and, while a little fragmented towards the end, the writer/director at least makes sure it’s a pleasure to reach that point.

Perhaps it’s a case of living with a project for too long. Or maybe it’s a case of a story that doesn’t quite morph so easily from one medium to another.

It’s Mirza’s personal connection to the story that makes it charming, moving, and magnetic in its best moments. To that end, the film accurately reflects the tumult of mothers and daughters and intergenerational culture gaps.

After 96 minutes spent with this family, in all their iterations, the heart wants nothing but the best for them all.

A mother-daughter tale bridging a generation gap between conservative religious upbringing in Pakistan and rebellious independence in rural Nova Scotia.

The Queen of my Dreams is a very enjoyable film that hides its depths, a very meaningful debut for its writer/director.

While the constant cross-cutting is disorienting, the film overflows with textures of life in multiple generations of this Pakistani-Canadian family. And what emerges is a richly detailed look at the threads that hold loved ones together.

Mizra’s debut often feels like it’s trying to be multiple features at once.