In films such as Mississippi Masala and The Namesake, Mira Nair has frequently focused on individuals caught between two
worlds or identities. Here, adapting a novel by Mohsin Hamid, she
adds to that a suspense element.
The main character is Changez (Riz Ahmed), a Pakistani university
professor suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of an American
in Lahore. But he is also a former Wall Street hotshot who specialized
in trimming waste (and personnel) from struggling
companies. His story is told in a series of flashbacks constructed
around a conversation between Changez and a journalist (Lieve Shcreiber)
after the kidnapping.
There is a mutual distrust that is not, as we learn, entirely irrational. Changez fears that he will be arrested; the journalist wonders if Changez is guilty. How did the clean-cut, America-loving Princeton student become a bearded radical? Naturally, 9/11 and its aftermath is a turning point. In a welcome change from her frothier roles, Kate Hudson
plays Changez’s American love interest, an artist, and Om Puri plays
his father. (Puri also played the father in My Son the Fanatic, which had a theme that somewhat echoes this.)
As a meditation on Changez’s internal conflict, this is competent. As a suspense drama, it’s pretty decent, but the fact that we don’t know if Changez is guilty is partly the result of the surface-level character depiction. His turn toward an anti-American radicalism is depicted as primarily the result of unfair treatment. But surely, there is an ideological inspiration behind such a change in this intellectually gifted man. Has he adopted a radical interpretation of Islam? (We see one scene in a mosque, and that’s about it.) Has he read Noam Chomsky? Admittedly, this is difficult turf for a film. Nair has not made the definitive film on terrorism, but merely a decent yarn with a political dimension.
IMDb link
viewed 4/29/13 7:30 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 4/30/13
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