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For almost three and a half decades, between the early fifties and mid eighties, the Children’s Film Foundation made a series of family friendly movies in the UK that were designed not to require ratings and classification. This was partly in response to the then system that seemed to be causing confusion around what was and wasn’t suitable for young people among the largely American cinema output. What they produced was a series of inoffensive adventure stories about kids for kids. They were short, often under an hour, and with the settings in places such as schools, football fields, woods and slate quarries, they were very very British.

While it’s been a while since these little movies were around, a small amount of their sensibility lives on today in things like The Kid Who Would Be King and Paddington, and to some extent Wallace and Gromit. Also, with their sense of gentle nationalism and simple storytelling, it similarly exists in more adult films like Hot Fuzz and Kingsman.

Watching Polite Society clearly put me in mind of this as well. The trappings of the story and the characters are very much those of life in the UK but this time with a multicultural angle, which in itself it typically British (at least any Britain I want to live in). The film has the spirit of young people on a mission as well, albeit with a more exaggerated spin, and the plotting is again joyously uncomplicated. It does push the boundaries in terms of classification a little, this movie is not universal for an audience of any age, but only to a slight degree with some mild violence and profanity and actually I think it has a sharp handle on just how far it can go with this. (The rating is 12A.)

Actually, some playing around with condoms aside, the main element where this is a little more grown up is in its discussion of periods, which highlights another important aspect of the film; it is very focused on the female experience, both Pakistani British and generally. Teenage protagonist Ria is an emergent martial artist and wannabe stunt woman, which does not sit with everyone’s expectation that she ought to be studying to become a doctor. Then, when her sister starts heading toward, if not an arranged marriage then a parental encouraged one, she decides to use her developing skills to save her sibling from a future she believes she doesn’t really want. The depiction of sisterhood, both with her family and among her school friends, is touching and the movie examines what it is to be a young woman in this culture and situation. (This, and what I am going talk about next also means it has plenty of the old Ripley Factor.)

When I say she uses her fighting skills to rescue her sister I mean literally, and this is where the plot becomes a little hyper real. Polite Society is like a cross between Scott Pilgrim and Bend it Like Beckham (although it’s not Indian Punjabi). There is a lot in common with Disney+‘s Ms. Marvel show here too, including one cast member. The parody is more subtle than it is in the aforementioned Hot Fuzz but it does owe an admitted debt to genre cinema in the same way, and like Hot Fuzz the humour is in seeing the tropes play out in a different cultural environment. That humour really lands too, the film is often laugh out loud funny and everything comes together to bring a highly endearing and entertaining one hundred minutes.

If you enjoy youth focused action adventure, genre mashing and culture clash comedy that feels like it leans into a tradition of demonstrably British movie making then, then this is definitely one for you. I really liked it.

Polite Society was in cinemas in April but is on iTunes now and comes out on disc at the end of July.