This multi-generational comedy also stars Shabana Azmi and Jeff Mirza as Kaz's parents and Emma Thompson as their neighbour and Zoe's mother.

The film is written and produced by Jemima Khan, initially as an exploration of the contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to romance, drawing on her lived experience as a cross-cultural love match with former wife to cricket legend and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Jemima Khan was intrigued by Pakistan's "simmer then boil" philosophy to life-long love, and as she says in the film's production notes, her own marriage was "the only love marriage in my ex-husband's family history ... and the only divorce".

For Lily James's character, that idea of an arranged match is a little frightening, even though she lets an app do a version of the same thing for her every night when she is coupled up with men through Tinder.

"To me, Zoe's character represents a lot of the anxiety young people take on these days navigating relationships," says the film's director, renowned Indian helmer Shekar Kapur.

Kapur says he was intrigued to explore the different ways people can come to love and to emotional connection.

"In an arranged marriage, you can walk into love rather than fall in love, but it's not that different," he says.

"Like with sex, your introduction to someone could be good, it could be bad, but ultimately a relationship grows from the everyday practical things, we are evolving love constantly, and what lies beyond that is a process."

Kapur might have been born into Indian filmmaking dynasty the Anand family, and cut his teeth performing in Bollywood films in the 1970s, but he found international success in his own right in 1994 with the indie hit film Bandit Queen, about the life of Phoolan Devi.

Hollywood took note and Kapur directed a trio of high profile films with Aussie leads, turning Cate Blanchett into a megastar with Elizabeth in 1998 and Elizabeth: The Golden Age in 2007, and directing the Heath Ledger film The Four Feathers in 2002.

Such titles would lead the viewer to think him an unusual choice as director for a romantic comedy.

"Well, I don't see this film as a rom-com so much as something more spiritual," Kapur says.

"Indian films are emotional," he continues, "both rom-com and action and drama all in the one package which is why we call them family films."

The multi-generational Australian audiences who flocked to cinemas to see the cross-cultural comedies Bend it Like Beckham or Bhaji on the Beach or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will agree - Kapur's film enjoys dramatic depth in addition to the film's many funny moments.

Much of its enjoyability lies in the witty dialogue of Jemima Khan's screenplay.

She might have grown up Jemima Goldsmith (of the British banking family), but Jemima Khan is a keen wordsmith, and particularly the dialogue for Lily James's Zoe is laugh-a-minute.

When Shazad Latif's Kaz explains love growing over time in arranged marriages, Zoe asks "Like Stockholm syndrome?"

Khan liberates one of my favourite Dorothy Parker lines when Zoe is contemplating freezing some of her eggs, not wanting to "put all my eggs in one bastard".

"Jemima's screenplay is amazing," Shekar Kapur agrees.

"I enjoyed her use in it of the metaphor of nursery rhymes, something dark about it, something there but not explored," he says, "which feels like her life, like a writer still discovering."

I ask Kapur if, as a filmmaker directing a comedy, there are challenges in both keeping the comedy fresh or in containing the laughter of the crew behind the camera.

"Yes, especially when Emma Thompson constantly innovates in every scene and the crew is in peels of laughter," Kapur says.

"I learned to leave the camera on and let her feel it," he says.

Thompson's character, Zoe's mother, is well-intentioned if culturally tone-deaf as the neighbour and friend of Kaz's extended Pakistani family.

"Sometimes those characters who say the most awkward things heighten the emotion, and Emma was my weapon, my tool, to get that great earnest comedy."

The term "multi-hyphenate" is thrown about in the filmmaking world when a figure takes on more than one role, like writing and directing, and multi-hyphenate Kapur isn't afraid to throw himself into anything and everything.

He continues to act fairly regularly in Bollywood productions, he was a judge on the first season of India's Got Talent, he started a comic book line with entrepreneur Richard Branson and author Deepak Chopra.

He's been one of India's most internationally recognisable directing talents for more than 30 years.

I ask him whether directing a film is easier in this digital age, and he agrees the craft is getting easier.

"Though I would have to say editing on digital is a little too easy," Kapur says.

"Trying a new edit can take a minute, anybody can quickly try an idea," he says, 'but back when I was editing Bandit Queen on the (old 35mm) Steinbeck, every cut took a long time to see and you had the time to fundamentally think about the emotional change you were making.

"There are too many shots in films now, and that cuts down on the emotional quality."

What's Love Got To Do With It? is now in cinemas.