Riz Ahmed delivers a blistering performance as Zed (an anglicised stage name abbreviated from Zaheer), a British-Pakistani rapper poised to conquer the US. But during his first visit to his family in Wembley in two years, Zed is struck down by a degenerative disease, which robs him of virtually everything but his voice. First-time feature director Bassam Tariq, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ahmed, inventively uses Zed’s illness as a jumping-off point to explore cultural identity, family and the long shadow cast by Partition. This is abrasive, confrontational film-making, with a machine-gun assault of ideas and influences. Spoken-word poetry jostles against the writing on Partition of Pakistani essayist Saadat Hasan Manto; painful family history blurs with hallucinatory memories from Zed’s childhood. And Ahmed, himself a rapper, makes sure that every line lands like a punch.
