SXSW Review: "The Queen of My Dreams"

By Abe Friedtanzer

People are never quite as far apart as they seem. While a parent surely changes as a result of having to now put someone else first, a part of their old self still remains, even if it’s hidden. An unexpected death prompts an unusual connection for one young woman and her mother in the insightful, entertaining, and creative The Queen of My Dreams, screening at SXSW…

Azra (Amrit Kaur) is twenty-two years old and living in Toronto with her girlfriend. Raised Muslim in Canada, Azra now enjoys a steely relationship with her mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha). When her father Hassan (Hamza Haq) dies suddenly on a trip with his wife to visit family in Pakistan, Azra flies across the world to a place that doesn’t feel at all like the life she has built for herself. Once she arrives, pieces of her mother’s younger life and courtship with her father are shown, with Kaur playing Mariam, who navigates her own difficult dynamic with her mother Amira (Gul-e-Rana).

This film has a lot in common with last year’s The Persian Version, another female-led multigenerational story of immigrants from Asian countries struggling to find common ground. That film is more inherently comedic, while The Queen of My Dreams follows a dramatic narrative enhanced by Bollywood sequences and other impossible connections that tie different time periods together. It’s a fun way to tell this story, one that proves to be quite isolating for both women, who can’t understand that they’re not that different, just coming at things from radically separate places and mindsets. 

It’s most interesting to see Azra push back against customs from her culture that haven’t shaped her life in recent years, upset that women aren’t allowed to be part of the burial rituals for Muslim men, meaning that she can’t properly say goodbye to her father. Seeing how, as a young woman, Mariam was forced to participate in a number of interviews for arranged marriages, and, like her daughter years later, rebelled against the wishes of her family by pursuing a relationship she wanted that took her to another continent adds dimensions to these characters and their relationships.

Kaur, Bucha, and Haq all deliver memorable, layered performances that enhance the film. Its look and color are particularly potent and inviting, evoking a different era. The hairstyles and facial hair speak volumes, and the film’s visuals complement a compelling and engaging story. Writer-director Fawzia Mirza makes an entertaining and impressive feature debut, digging into pieces of her own identity to craft a great story that leaves a lasting impression. B+

The Queen of My Dreams is screening in the Festival Favorites section at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.