Zaineen (Zaineen Chowdhury Karim), a wealthy young woman in contemporary Dhaka, sees dangerous men outside of her ‘brides only’ compound. The compound, which seems like a ‘brides only’ spa, has its comforts, including her personal assistant Minoti (Reekita Nondine Shimu). But still, the spa feels so stifling that she starts acting strange when she has time to go out jogging.

Zaineen is staying at the salon during monsoon season, when animals can get into her and the other rooms. Those animals are part of the problem and there’s also the ghost of a bride (Sunerah Binte Kamal) haunting her. Alongside those problems, she’s also suffering from insomnia, and adding all of those up make for, well, The Difficult Bride.

The Difficult Bride shows the contradictions of perfection under colonial parameters – the bridal consultant (Azmeri Haque Badhon) calls her fat. I can only make references to Western folk tropes in The Difficult Bride, although a Bengali may have better insight. It also puts those folk creatures in opposition with Islam.

The Difficult Bride comes from director Rubaiyat Hossain, a departure from more straightforward working class dramas like Made in Bangladesh. Hossain seems to split her time between Bangladesh and Massachusetts, where she teaches, which gives her, mostly some cultural insight. She gets the upper class quasi-diaspora right but it seems like she doesn’t know how marijuana works on most people. Despite my big nitpicks, Zaineen, a character with contradictions, makes for a competently compelling protagonist for viewers to empathise with.