Brick Lane - Quick Movie Review

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Title: Brick Lane

Release Date: 2008-06-20

Genres: Drama


High essence:

"Nazneen's father decides to marry her off to Chanu (Satish Kaushik), an educated and older Muslim living in London's East End."

"But despite the film's lack of energy, the warmth of Ali's characters remains: Chatterjee is watchful and expressive as Nazneen while Satish Kaushik steals the show as her husband, with his self-important fondness for quoting from the greats of philosophy and literature."

"Gavron's earnest adaptation of Monica Ali's sprawling novel about a naïve Bangladeshi girl whose arranged marriage takes her far from home is restrained and decorous to a fault."

"Dramatically the film is weaker for it, hilariously shorthanding Karim's growing extremism by suddenly giving him a kufi and scraggly beard while affording him no real ideological corollary."

"Brick Lane is an interesting immigrant tale that doesn't fully pull offits heroine's shifting world view."

"The fruit of their loveless union, young Tony (Eddie Redmayne from The Good Shepherd and Elizabeth: The Golden Age ), is the one who pays the price - a poor little rich kid who saves his scant creativity for his sex life."

"Chris Raphael/Sony Pictures Classics hide caption Brick Lane Rated PG-13: Some sexuality and brief strong language."

Medium essence:

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat:
  • Nazneen's father decides to marry her off to Chanu (Satish Kaushik), an educated and older Muslim living in London's East End.
  • Sixteen years later, Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) lives in Brick Lane, a rundown housing complex that is home to many immigrants.
  • Having lost her first-born son in a crib death, she now has two daughters: Shahana (Naeema Begum), a rebellious teenager, and Bibi (Lana Rahman), a ten year old.

Melissa Anderson:
  • The crunch comes after the attacks on the World Trade Center, amid the drum-beat for war and the backlash against Britain's Muslims.
  • But despite the film's lack of energy, the warmth of Ali's characters remains: Chatterjee is watchful and expressive as Nazneen while Satish Kaushik steals the show as her husband, with his self-important fondness for quoting from the greats of philosophy and literature.
  • co Being a Bengali, and having lived similar experiences once upon a time, this film portrayed each and every second 'as real as it gets'.

Maitland McDonagh:
  • Gavron's earnest adaptation of Monica Ali's sprawling novel about a naïve Bangladeshi girl whose arranged marriage takes her far from home is restrained and decorous to a fault.
  • Screenwriters Abi Morgan and Laura Jones pare Nazneen's story to its bare bones, losing most of the novel's first half and focusing on a single year – 2001 – when history intrudes o Nazti.
  • Nazneen's (Tannishta Chatterjee) new home is the grandly named Elgood Park Estate, a gloomy housing project in London's East End, and her new husband, Chanu Ahmed (Satish Kaushik), is a fat, pompous ass.

Wesley Morris:
  • Dramatically the film is weaker for it, hilariously shorthanding Karim's growing extremism by suddenly giving him a kufi and scraggly beard while affording him no real ideological corollary.
  • She's still taciturn, bashful, and immune to the notions of assimilation that have made her daughters - a moody teenager and a tween angel - and a lot of her neighbors tentatively comfortable as Brits.
  • Her connection to the world outside her is the seamstress work she lucks into.

Laura Clifford:
  • Chanu makeshimself even less attractive in comparison when, having quit his job, hepurchases a computer from the local usurer Mrs Islam (Lalita Ahmed, Bhajion the Beach), expecting Nazneen's new income to cover it.
  • Brick Lane is an interesting immigrant tale that doesn't fully pull offits heroine's shifting world view.
  • Flash forwardsixteen years later and we see Nazneen's back as she prepares dinner in thetiny galley kitchen of a dark, cramped, anonymous walkup in Brick Lane.

Kelly Vance:
  • The fruit of their loveless union, young Tony (Eddie Redmayne from The Good Shepherd and Elizabeth: The Golden Age ), is the one who pays the price - a poor little rich kid who saves his scant creativity for his sex life.
  • Its female lead character, Nazneen (Indian actor Tannishtha Chatterjee) is the victim of an arranged marriage that sent her from her beloved Bangladesh to the gray confines of a council flat in East London, circa 1980s to the present, where she puts up with her foolish, dumpy husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik) and two daughters while daydreaming of home - rendered beautifully by Robbie Ryan's cinematography.
  • Culture Spy - May 8, 1:54 PM Seven Days - May AM Culture Spy - May 8, 7:01 AM Seven Days - May 7, 2:28 PM Continuing coverage of the local and national Occupy movement.

Mark Jenkins:
  • Her portly husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik) is more pedant than tyrant and not uncritical of Islamic culture.
  • Chris Raphael/Sony Pictures Classics hide caption Brick Lane Rated PG-13: Some sexuality and brief strong language.
  • And at least one moment from the book has been altered for the better: Nazneen chases her runaway daughter to the local train station, and thus into the world beyond Brick Lane a five-minute run that becomes a metaphor for female independence.

Low essence:

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat:
  • Nazneen lives with her parents and sisters in a rural Bangladesh village with her sister Hasina.
  • A handsome young Bangladeshi man named Karim (Christopher Simpson) delivers the piece work for her to do.
  • Brick Lane is beautifully and sensitively directed by Sarah Gavron.
  • It is based on a critically acclaimed novel of the same title by Monica Ali.
  • Nazneen's father decides to marry her off to Chanu (Satish Kaushik), an educated and older Muslim living in London's East End.
  • Sixteen years later, Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) lives in Brick Lane, a rundown housing complex that is home to many immigrants.
  • Having lost her first-born son in a crib death, she now has two daughters: Shahana (Naeema Begum), a rebellious teenager, and Bibi (Lana Rahman), a ten year old.

Melissa Anderson:
  • The crunch comes after the attacks on the World Trade Center, amid the drum-beat for war and the backlash against Britain's Muslims.
  • But despite the film's lack of energy, the warmth of Ali's characters remains: Chatterjee is watchful and expressive as Nazneen while Satish Kaushik steals the show as her husband, with his self-important fondness for quoting from the greats of philosophy and literature.
  • So polite that this graceful tale of lives lived day-by-day, millimetre-by-millimetre, comes off as oddly flat-footed and modest in its lack of drama.
  • Skip to 2001, and Nazneen is a mother of two whose narrow world expands a little when she takes a job stitching-up clothes for the rag trade.
  • Soon, she's having an affair with a younger man, Karim ( Christopher Simpson ).
  • This film is quite successful in showing dullness of life in Council Flats but something seems missing.
  • co Being a Bengali, and having lived similar experiences once upon a time, this film portrayed each and every second 'as real as it gets'.

Maitland McDonagh:
  • Gavron's earnest adaptation of Monica Ali's sprawling novel about a naïve Bangladeshi girl whose arranged marriage takes her far from home is restrained and decorous to a fault.
  • Nazneen's world begins to come apart when Chanu decides the family should move back to Bangladesh: Her daughters are distraught at the thought of leaving England, and Karim, increasingly devoted to radical Muslim politics, is pressuring her to divorce Chanu and marry him.
  • Screenwriters Abi Morgan and Laura Jones pare Nazneen's story to its bare bones, losing most of the novel's first half and focusing on a single year – 2001 – when history intrudes o Nazti.
  • But Nazneen's own life changes abruptly after her mother's suicide: Her widowed father arranges the 17-year-old's marriage to a much older man who lives in London.
  • Nazneen's (Tannishta Chatterjee) new home is the grandly named Elgood Park Estate, a gloomy housing project in London's East End, and her new husband, Chanu Ahmed (Satish Kaushik), is a fat, pompous ass.
  • Though the neighborhood is full of South Asian immigrants, the devout, deferential Nazneen – raised to submit to fate and her husband's authority – stays close to home and lives for letters from her high-spirited sister (Zafreen), who ran away from home to marry a man she loved.
  • Razia lends Nazneen a sewing machine and helps her get piecework that keeps the family afloat when Chanu's pie-in-the-sky business ventures comto aught.

Wesley Morris:
  • Brick Lane is one of those cultural displacement dramas full of sexual awakening and self-discovery.
  • We never see what her sister back in Bangladesh is up to, but we get an earful from the letters she writes.
  • It means well (these movies always do), but it's as leery of the world beyond its shabby title London enclave as its heroine is.
  • After an hour, those troubles intensify as Sept.
  • Dramatically the film is weaker for it, hilariously shorthanding Karim's growing extremism by suddenly giving him a kufi and scraggly beard while affording him no real ideological corollary.
  • She's still taciturn, bashful, and immune to the notions of assimilation that have made her daughters - a moody teenager and a tween angel - and a lot of her neighbors tentatively comfortable as Brits.
  • Her connection to the world outside her is the seamstress work she lucks into.

Laura Clifford:
  • FriendlyRazia sets Nazneen up and that is how she meets Karim (Christopher Simpson,The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam), the handsome younger Muslim whobrings the ladies their piece work.
  • Chanu makeshimself even less attractive in comparison when, having quit his job, hepurchases a computer from the local usurer Mrs Islam (Lalita Ahmed, Bhajion the Beach), expecting Nazneen's new income to cover it.
  • Brick Lane is an interesting immigrant tale that doesn't fully pull offits heroine's shifting world view.
  • Laura: Young British director Sarah Gavron brings Monica Ali's acclaimed novel (adaptedby Laura Jones, Possession and Abi Morgan, TV's Tsunami: The Aftermath)to the big screen employing gorgeous visuals (cinematography by Robbie Ryan,Red Road) for her Bangladeshi flashbacks while depicting London with oppressiveclaustrophobia.
  • A young Nazneen plays with her sister in lush green paddy fields dotted withvibrantly colored insects.
  • Flash forwardsixteen years later and we see Nazneen's back as she prepares dinner in thetiny galley kitchen of a dark, cramped, anonymous walkup in Brick Lane.

Kelly Vance:
  • Shenge is the sort of guy who tips over hay wagons and wrecks his motorcycle while drunk, but he's persistent.
  • The fruit of their loveless union, young Tony (Eddie Redmayne from The Good Shepherd and Elizabeth: The Golden Age ), is the one who pays the price - a poor little rich kid who saves his scant creativity for his sex life.
  • Its female lead character, Nazneen (Indian actor Tannishtha Chatterjee) is the victim of an arranged marriage that sent her from her beloved Bangladesh to the gray confines of a council flat in East London, circa 1980s to the present, where she puts up with her foolish, dumpy husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik) and two daughters while daydreaming of home - rendered beautifully by Robbie Ryan's cinematography.
  • Culture Spy - May 8, 1:54 PM Seven Days - May AM Culture Spy - May 8, 7:01 AM Seven Days - May 7, 2:28 PM Continuing coverage of the local and national Occupy movement.

Mark Jenkins:
  • Her portly husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik) is more pedant than tyrant and not uncritical of Islamic culture.
  • Then things get even more complicated, both emotionally and politically.
  • Chris Raphael/Sony Pictures Classics hide caption Brick Lane Rated PG-13: Some sexuality and brief strong language.
  • And at least one moment from the book has been altered for the better: Nazneen chases her runaway daughter to the local train station, and thus into the world beyond Brick Lane a five-minute run that becomes a metaphor for female independence.

Source:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/new-wave-wives-tales/Content?oid=1090470
http://www.tvguide.com/movies/brick-lane/review/294216
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/84862/brick_lane.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91659994
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=18209
http://www.reelingreviews.com/bricklane.htm
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/06/27/seduction_and_betrayal_in_a_foreign_land