Tell Me About It review – British Asian Gen Z drama bounces between crime and kitchen sink | Film

Here is a film set in the British-Pakistani community that focuses on two Gen Z girls on the cusp of adulthood: Halima (Nimrah S Zaman) and Amara (Ariya Larker). Halima is the daughter of an MP with plans to get tougher on drug-related crime, while Amara is just trying to get by despite a turbulent family life, with parents who seemingly can’t stand each other and a brother struggling to find his path in life and considering a job in a call centre. So far, so social-realist, but when Halima and Amara plan a weekend away, Amara gets kidnapped by accident by a goon working for a drug kingpin who, claiming “all brown girls look the same to me”, mistakes her for Halima.

The director, Suman Hanif, has said that Tell Me About It is aiming to hold a mirror up to represent the experiences of the British South Asian community; presumably this applies to the family dynamics and friendships more than the kidnap plot. It’s uneven stuff – the way that Hanif blends the contrasting elements of kitchen-sink realism, comedy and kidnap drama lands us somewhere in the same tonal zone of a TV programme like Hollyoaks.

But where long-running soaps can rely on an audience familiarity with and affection for characters established over years, Tell Me About It struggles to invest the various plot beats with much narrative momentum, or establish the characters’ dilemmas and frictions as genuinely suspenseful. The variable nature of the performances is perhaps a factor, as is the wobbly script. Tell Me About It will likely be of greatest interest to existing fans of the key cast, who include an influencer, a model/actor, and 2004’s Mr Asia UK.

Here is a film set in the British-Pakistani community that focuses on two Gen Z girls on the cusp of adulthood: Halima (Nimrah S Zaman) and Amara (Ariya Larker). Halima is the daughter of an MP with plans to get tougher on drug-related crime, while Amara is just trying to get by despite a turbulent family life, with parents who seemingly can’t stand each other and a brother struggling to find his path in life and considering a job in a call centre. So far, so social-realist, but when Halima and Amara plan a weekend away, Amara gets kidnapped by accident by a goon working for a drug kingpin who, claiming “all brown girls look the same to me”, mistakes her for Halima.

The director, Suman Hanif, has said that Tell Me About It is aiming to hold a mirror up to represent the experiences of the British South Asian community; presumably this applies to the family dynamics and friendships more than the kidnap plot. It’s uneven stuff – the way that Hanif blends the contrasting elements of kitchen-sink realism, comedy and kidnap drama lands us somewhere in the same tonal zone of a TV programme like Hollyoaks.

But where long-running soaps can rely on an audience familiarity with and affection for characters established over years, Tell Me About It struggles to invest the various plot beats with much narrative momentum, or establish the characters’ dilemmas and frictions as genuinely suspenseful. The variable nature of the performances is perhaps a factor, as is the wobbly script. Tell Me About It will likely be of greatest interest to existing fans of the key cast, who include an influencer, a model/actor, and 2004’s Mr Asia UK.