Susan Granger’s review of “Brick Lane” (Sony Pictures Classics)
There are many stories about immigrants’ feelings of alienation – and this one revolves around a subservient Muslim girl’s gradual transformation into a decisive woman.
When she was young, Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) vowed never to leave her younger sister and their beloved Bangladeshi village, but as a teenager she was married off to a pompous, portly, older businessman, Chanu (Satish Kaushik), and expected to build a life in East London’s shabby, immigrant-filled Brick Lane district where, years earlier, carts rolled from kilns in the countryside to the city’s construction sites.
Two school-age children and 16 dutifully banal years later, Nazneen is still dreaming of returning ‘home’ to see her sister. Unable to afford the plane ticket, she obtains a second-hand sewing machine and begins working as a seamstress to make extra money. That’s how she becomes involved with young, politically militant Karim (Christopher Simpson), who brings her men’s pants to stitch. Far more than just ‘an affair,’ their relationship redefines how Nazneen views herself, her foolish husband, their daughters and their lives.
Based on Monica Ali’s expansive novel which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003, writers Abi Morgan and Laura Jones faced the monumental challenge of choosing what to discard and what to retain. While their screenplay retains the clandestine romantic intrigue, its great complication comes from the events of 9/11 – after which anti-Muslim prejudice dominated much of Great Britain. And director Sarah Gavron indulges in a few too many shadowy pastoral reminiscences, augmented by Robbie Ryan’s lush photography. On the other hand, the acting is uniformly good – with Satish Kaushik familiar from Bollywood films. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Brick Lane” is a poignant, subtle 6, tackling cross-cultural conflict and racial intolerance.
