jackasstrange Brick Lane is the adaptation to cinema of the novel with same name, written by British writer Monica Ali, and published in 2003. I never heard of that book, but i must say that the film is below average at best. Apart from the fact that this film has beautiful shots and many beautiful songs composing a good soundtrack, it is dread and full of outdated and unconvincing stereotypes of the Muslim people. It's known the fact that they(Muslims) live in a relatively big number into the Brick Lane street. However, it poor depiction and somewhat racist portrayal of the characters is not a good deal to this film. Is like saying that all the Muslims outside of Bangladesh are poor. And the most impressive of these archetypes is without a doubt,the ignorant father of family. However, he is a kind of a philosophy student, so his behavior with his family is, most of the time, nonsense and contradictory with his own nature. The acting was average, with his ups and downs. Not much thought on it. The story itself is very slow and uninteresting most of time. I do not recommend this film. 4.9/ 10

quadrophobia This movie, though honored in many reviews as a perfect view on the life of immigrants in England, sadly becomes a stew out of stereotypes along the storyline. There is just a very little look taken on the social life and integration in the community in Great Britain, but a boring and overdrawn kind of love story, rather making the movie boring than interesting. Unfourtnatly there are no key scenes opening the movie for the viewer. Minute after Minute you fade out of the storyline being annoyed about long, meaningless scenes and less outdrawn , and mostly not further noticed motives.All in all it is more a soft Romance than a reality displaying drama.

selffamily Before I go any further - I have not read the book. I might now do so, however, as I believe with books and movies, it's usually best to see the film first. So much has to be lost when one transfers a story to screen, that the book is almost always an enriching experience. I fell over this almost in error at my local DVD store, so I did not see it on a big screen, which I would have liked. quite apart from the scenery and photography, it might have helped to be able to see the sub titles! There weren't that many of those, not enough to spoil the story.I felt that the early childhood scenes, in their innocence and sudden suicide of the mother, then leading to the point where the father could not keep both daughters at home and so arranged the marriage (my interpretation) to this "educated man" in England, were heartbreaking in retrospect, and there was quite a bit of yearning and retrospection for the poor bride. We met her some astonishing 17 years later, with her teenage daughter and younger child, not sure how old she was. They were not afraid of life, whereas their mother seemed to be virtually housebound from terror. When she met the neighbour who lent/gave the sewing machine to her, it was an enormously liberating experience for her and she began to think and act differently. The young man who was the catalyst in the change for the family, could have had two heads, she was so desperate for the fun and affection that she believed her sister to be experiencing. Her husband, a bumbling poor soul, whom life constantly overlooked was unable to cope with his daughter's puberty let alone the mounting reaction to 9/11. He became more lovable as the film progressed, obviously to both Nazeem and myself.The usurer who tried to blackmail Nazeem into extra payments, the neighbour and the others with small parts in the story were all as exquisitely drawn as the main characters. Nazeem began to understand that her life was her reality and when she held her husband's hand on the way home from the Bengal Tigers' meeting, one had a real sense of her maturity. There is so much more to this story than the top layer. I loved so many aspects of it - the acting, the photography, the story. Maybe it was simplified almost beyond belief, but that is normal. I found it moving, educational and hugely enjoyable. I shall recommend it.

gurdeep-hamilton Contains very mild spoilers. The characters in Brick Lane appear boxed into a confined, restricting little world (aren't we all...?). The film's main character is a housewife, Nazneen (played by Tannistha Chatterjee), who habitually recalls childhood memories of green, open spaces and rural life in Bangladesh and shares her private sadness with the viewer that her soul is denied a sense of freedom. Tensions, frustrations and puzzlement about life and where it is going has as it's main back-drop, the interior of a small East London flat.Nazneen's proud, precise, well-read husband is not immediately endearing (in what appears to be a loveless marriage), but subsequently reveals his hidden depths on two occasions in particular; one concerning his Faith (in the presence of his community), in the wake of '9/11' (2001); the other concerning a significant choice about his family's future.Nazneen's sister is never far from her thoughts and the arrival of her letters from Bangladesh have the effect of sustaining Nazneen in the belief that her sister has found love and happiness. Nazneen's only expression of real defiance directed at her husband concerns one of the letters. The correspondence between the sisters remarks on how we tend to put the reader's feelings before our own, when posting a little piece of our world overseas.The film explores how one discovers a hidden self and qualities that duty, force of habit, the day-to-day, and the expectations of others, forces us to deny and conceal - ultimately to our own personal loss, leaving our relationships with those we love the poorer for it.One character in the film is a corrupt elder in the community described as a 'userer' (loan shark!). She supplies a fascinating, malevolent contribution - until Nazneen, waking up to her own inner strengths, challenges her.The film can perhaps best be summarised by the words of Nazneen's husband who later concludes admiringly that the woman he married (who has lived in his shadow some twenty years), was not a 'girl from the village'; implying that Nazneen's simple rural roots belied her wit and savvy. Another important point that should not be lost, is that Nazneen's place (for the most part denied her), in shaping the family's destiny influences their young daughter's lives; growing up essentially in two cultures.Expect a small, compelling cast; admirably directed, scripted and acted throughout. A brave, beautiful film that handled sensitive issues with sensitivity, brought a tear to the eye...and a measure of hope.