Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Blistering performances.

To begin with, I do not care for women filmmakers, especially their self-congratulatory commentary and "women as victims" slant, which is why I initially found the lack of English subtitles or captions for the hearing impaired so unforgivable. English as spoken in Britain is my native language, but I could not understand the Bengali accented English in the film. As a result, I could not follow the plot and resolved to check out the book. Eventually I found the captions by accident when I switched on subtitles for the special features, and after returning to the film, they came on. The DVD box did not list captions. I rated the film a 7, as it is a very interesting and absorbing film which made made think about for a few days. No one in the film is bad or good, and you are able to sympathize with all the characters, even the elderly widowed moneylender. For me, the husband was the saddest character. His youthful dreams had come to nothing despite his education, he was passed over for the civil service and reduced to menial jobs in middle age. He had always dreamed of returning to Bangladesh as a successful man, but his failure to achieve success led to him staying on in Britain where he was not really welcome. Even his two daughters were ungrateful and alienated, perhaps because being British born they saw him as foreign. If the husband and wife had been able to communicate things might have been better, but although married and living in a tiny over-furnished flat, they seemed to live separate lives.

My sister, one of my best sources for literature that doesn't disappoint, told me that Brick Lane was one of her all time favorite books. I didn't get to it, but I did get to the movie. After cinematically traveling to India via "Before the Rains" a couple of weeks ago, Brick Lane took me to Bangledesh. With continuous flashbacks to her home country, I followed Nazneem,a young Bangladeshi woman to the London ghetto in the early 1980's.As was common in her culture, Nazneem left home at age sixteen to pursue an arranged marriage She has two daughters, who we meet as young teens, one of whom is as rebellious and difficult as any American teenager we've known (or been). Nazneem is dreadfully unhappy in her new life partly because she misses her sister back home. The other reasons have something to do with never having lived life on her own terms, losing her first born and a touch of early mother loss, too.Let's just say that the different manifestations of love are examined in Brick Lane through the experience of Nazneem. How her heart opens and how she matures is unexpected. Without giving too much away, there is a drop dead gorgeous character named Karim who has something to do with it. Like a good book, and I suspect this is one, there are delicious surprises. Characters endear us in the end that we couldn't stand at first and others we admire, fall from grace. The story is rich.So, I'll be getting my copy of Brick Lane by Monica Ali and will let you know how it measures up to this beautiful movie. Weeks can go by without a worthwhile movie to see, but to have Before the Rains and Brick Lane in the same month. Now, that's a gift.

Everyday Nazneen scrubs her foggy window pane trying to peer out of her dingy Brick Lane flat. She longs to return to her childhood home of Bangladeshi where she and her sister ran free through the lush woods before her father forced her to marry an older man living abroad.Nazneen has been raised not to question her fate, so she does her best to fulfill her duty to her husband and family.Her husband, Chanu, (Satish Kaushik) does not come off as a stereotypical tyrant but a chubby optimist who prides himself in being a western "educated man." He has instructed his daughters to assimilate into Western culture, yet expects to be treated as undisputed ruler of the household. This irony is not lost on their teenage daughter, Shahana, who disrupts the household by challenging her father. (Naeema Begum is pitch perfect as the average "mouthy" teen.) Nasneen does her best to shield (literally) her daughter from her father's retaliation. But the girls have no role model in their submissive mother. Nasneen's only connection with the outside world is what her husband shares with her. Unfortunately, he has absolutely no insight into the needs of his wife or daughters.Nazneen finally decides to facilitate their trip back to her homeland herself by taking in sewing. The handsome young man (Christopher Simpson) who delivers the garments cracks open a window to the world. Director Sarah Gavron shows Nazneen's awakening through the subtle complexity of Tannishtha Chatterjee's performance.When 9/11 ignites racial tension in the diverse neighborhoods of Britain, Nazneen must ask herself, "What is my true home?" Nazneen finds that home is where you find your strength.Don't miss the gorgeous cinematography while it's still on the big screen. BRICK LANE is one of the best films of the summer.Movie Blessings! Jana Segal reelinspiration dot blogspot dot com

As I started watching Brick Lane my heart soared. The beauty of its appreciation of nature (Bangladeshi scenes from the lead character's memory) reminded me of the masterpieces of Deepa Mehta if not of Satyajit Ray. It tells of a young girl whose father marries her off to an educated Bangladeshi back in London. Displaced from her homeland, her heart is full of secret sorrow until she finds herself attracted to a man younger than her husband and much closer to her own age. From that point she begins much soul searching, examining her own identity and place in the world."For us," says director Sarah Gavron, "'Brick Lane' as a title symbolises a sanctuary to successive waves of immigrants searching for home. That search, rather than the bricks and mortar of the street, is at the heart of the story." I admit that her description helps me to have a better view of the film but I wish it had been more apparent in the footage.A beautiful love story develops, with a subplot about resisting Islamic extremism. Yet I soon felt as if I were watching a kind of updated Jane Austen novel where the Brick Lane (East London) Bangladeshi community were used simply to provide a fresh plot device.I read some of the adverse comments from Brick Lane spokespeople that plagued the film's opening. I didn't feel I could relate to them. I found nothing offensive in the film. Except it seemed to me somehow a curiously British portrayal of Bangladeshis. There is plenty of reference to Bangladeshi or Muslim issues but authenticity seems a little uneven. Translation of a prayer is touching. But a reference to the Muslims that died in Partition (at the end of colonial rule) seems less heartfelt. The young daughter, who has only ever known British ways, is a very convincing character on the other hand. I am tempted to wish that the original prize-winning writer had focused her efforts more on the daughter, someone much closer to her own diaspora experience.As a film it succeeds. Exquisite photography and bundles of unarticulated emotion sweep us along at a heady pace. As a glimpse of another culture it is on less secure ground. The people claiming it misrepresented them may not have been statistically significant but why did it stir up so much trouble? Consider this. When Gurinder Chadha made Bride and Prejudice, she focused on the positive qualities of the two protagonists and cultures (India and America). When Deepa Meetha made Water, she focused on the positive strengths of the women on whose behalf the film was (in part) a protest. Sarah Gavron's heroine in Brick Lane, on the other hand, is almost an entirely a passive recipient of circumstance. We suspect she is a lovely person, but it needs more than some idyllic childhood memories of running through paddy fields to pinpoint the beauty within her. Much as the director's comment gives a higher purpose and reading to the film, it is not so obvious from viewing alone. Her comment about a sanctuary is a very spiritual one - perhaps even capable of uniting Muslims and Jews one day. But although her protagonist's husband does make reference to it at a Muslim meeting it could too easily be missed. Sadly, but not surprisingly, some audiences have reacted to the extremely personal (but more negative) images of her trapped and isolated woman.For a film with a serious intent, Brick Lane stops short at quality entertainment. Compare Mira Nair's epic The Namesake, which asks questions about identity and answers them. Or the way Satyajit Ray looks at home and identity through simple observation If Sarah Gavron had wanted to accomplish anything as grand as the search for sanctuary in a foreign land, her scope needed to be more ambitious.