Film review: 'Brick Lane'
Set in London’s “Banglatown” community of Bangladeshi Muslims in the days before and after 9/11, “Brick Lane” chronicles the slow self-liberation of yet another unhappily married heroine.
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Movie Critic John Beifuss reviews four new films, "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," Pineapple Express" and "Brick Lane." Watch »
Joss Barratt/Sony Pictures Classics
Tannishtha Chatterjee as Nazneen in "Brick Lane," set in London.
Rated PG-13 for some sexuality and brief strong language
Length: 101 minutes
Released: June 20, 2008 LimitedCast: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, Christopher Simpson, Harsh Nayyar, Harvey Virdi
Director: Sarah GavronProducer: Chris Collins, Alison Owen,
Writer: Monica Ali, Abi Morgan
Genre: Drama
Distributor: Sony Pictures
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The slant is feminist, but the most interesting character is not the saintly and long-suffering Nazneen (beautifully played by Tannishtha Chatterjee) but her husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik), who repeatedly loses promotions to less-qualified Anglos.
Chanu is introduced as a repulsively overweight heavy-breather and self-deluding would-be Brit, with a short temper and a pretentious interest in Thackeray, Chaucer and the Brontes; as the film progresses, the tension between his desire for acceptance and his realization of his failure becomes the movie’s most intriguing character arc.
When Chanu speaks of the 18th-century philosopher Hume, his enthusiasm seems genuine, and his wife’s disinterest makes her seem cold.
Directed by Sarah Gavron, from a script by Laura Jones and Abi Morgan, the movie — adapted from the acclaimed and popular 2003 novel by Monica Ali that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Britain’s top fiction award — is familiar in theme but distinctive in detail. Unfortunately, the pretty, textured pictures — with their sophisticated lighting and focus effects suggest not struggle but a magazine fashion layout, even when the woman in the image is sitting at a secondhand sewing machine.
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