Entertainment / TIFF 2021: We Tell You Why “Ali & Ava” Is A Refreshingly Solid Romance For Grown Ups

TIFF 2021: We Tell You Why “Ali & Ava” Is A Refreshingly Solid Romance For Grown Ups

Entertainment Feb 18, 2022

by Matthew Currie

Since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ali & Ava has been collecting numerous accolades. Most notably, the film’s lead Adeel Akhtar has received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor, while his film nabbed Outstanding British Film nomination. Directed by Clio Barnard and starring Adeel Akhtar (The Big Sick, Victoria & Abdul, Netflix’s Sweettooth) and Claire Rushbrook. And that spirit, we are reposting our review of this film ahead of the BAFTAs on March 22, 2022. Check out why we think this film is a must-watch.

Ali & Ava, directed by Clio Barnard and starring Adeel Akhtar (Sweet Tooth) and Claire Rushbrook (Temple), continued its lauded festival-circuit run this past September with a stop at the Toronto International Film Festival. The understated British drama tracks the tender, uplifting, complicated romance that develops between a working-class landlord and a single mother of four. Check out why we think this one is a must-watch.

In recent years, Adeel Akhtar has seen his star rise considerably in both the U.K. and Hollywood, with memorable turns in such flicks as Victoria & Abdul, The Big Sick and Enola Holmes. Most recently, you saw him in a series-regular role on Netflix’s breakout hit Sweet Tooth.

Next up is Ali & Ava — a film that proves to be the ideal showcase for the actor’s charisma and versatility.

He plays the titular Ali, a 40-something British-Pakistani property manager in working-class Bradford, England, who sustains himself amidst the doldrums with a part-time career as a DJ. Ali is a charmer — brimming with energy, wit and an infectious sense of play, chatting up his tenants with aplomb while he fixes their sinks. Which is how, after offering to give one of those tenants’ daughter a ride to and from school, he meets Ava (Claire Rushbrook) — the girl’s kind, tough, a-little-bit-wounded teaching assistant.

Sharing a car ride in the rain, they hit it off.

But as they tiptoe their way toward romance, there are landmines aplenty, but not so much in the form of love triangles or other such soap-opera dramatics. Rather, writer-director Clio Barnard (Dark River) subtly, stylishly digs into the complexities of sparking a new romance while dragging half a lifetime’s worth of baggage.

Behind his aggressively cheerful exterior, Ali is lugging the weight of a failed marriage — separated from his wife yet still living with her, and still harbouring feelings that she doesn’t share. Meanwhile, Ava is a mother of four mostly grown children, some of whom have children of their own. And her history with men is best summed up by her daughter early on: “Find yourself a decent fella next time.”

The odds are stacked against them not because of some epic Shakespearean crossing of stars, but because, well, that’s just how life is.

The divide between these two is neatly, cleverly symbolized by their musical tastes. Early on in that aforementioned rainy-day meet-cute, we learn that DJ Ali loves punk, rock and pop; alas, Ava is country and folk girl. Aficionado that he is, Ali playfully teases her. Yet a little later on, in what you might call their first date — a living-room dance party with duelling iPhone soundtracks — we learn that two people dancing to their own tune can be a perfect match.

Whether that chemistry is enough to overcome the many obstacles that lay before them . . . we’re afraid you’ll just have to wait till the film scores a wide release.

Naturally, beyond Akhtar’s nervy charisma and Rushbrook’s warm, wounded soulfulness, much of the credit here goes to Barnard, who pulls off the neat trick of keeping her love story gritty and grounded and bittersweet, while also infusing it with an irresistible kinetic energy and needle-drop pop-song moments that epitomize what falling in love does to us all — whether you’re 16 or 65.

Main Image Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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TIFF 2021: We Tell You Why “Ali & Ava” Is A Refreshingly Solid Romance For Grown Ups

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

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