Starring Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik. Directed by Sarah
Gavron. Written by Laura Jones, Abi Morgan, based on the novel by
Monica Ali. (PG) 101 min. Opens July 4.
In one of Brick Lane’s key dramatic moments —?most of which, it’s worth pointing out, occur within close proximity to a kitchen sink —?a character states that while he once believed in life’s possibilities, life forced him to focus on certainties. “Ironic,” he muses.
What’s ironic too is that for a movie about belonging, this adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel is all over the place. It’s so uneven that its central theme about immigrants — in this case Bangladeshis pining for home in 2001 London —?is lost amid a lot of circular talk.
Indian art-house star Tannishtha Chatterjee taps into some inner unrest as Nazneen, a woman still homesick 16 years after being shipped away from rural Bangladesh (and her beloved sister) for an arranged marriage to Chanu, an older, educated emigrant to the UK (Satish Kaushik). Motivations are hazy as Nazneen gravitates into an affair with the westernized Karim (Christopher Simpson). Just when the film starts to embrace its own ambivalence, along comes Sept. 11 to galvanize feelings, but that seems like a red herring amid deeper matters of migration and identity.
Gavron fusses over the meditative tone with flashbacks and narration via letters home. Chatterjee gets solid support from Naeema Begum as her teenage daughter (perhaps the only clear-thinker of consequence on screen) but Kaushik and Simpson seem as unintentionally rudderless as their characters; Chanu is painted, not unsympathetically, as a sort of erudite buffoon, yet gets the lion’s share of good lines as he’s villainized and redeemed in short order. It’s as if he’s just putting in time waiting for the muted moral this movie takes too long to reach.