The Reluctant Fundamentalist ****
“Looks can be deceiving. I am a lover of America,” Changez Khan, a young Pakistani professor suspected of being a terrorist, tells American journalist Bobby Lincoln in a heaving tea house in Lahore.
That remark and subsequent interview reflects the mutual suspicions between the two men who symbolise the tensions between East and West in the wake of September 11.
Based on Moshin Hamid’s acclaimed novel award winning director Mira Nair’s new film explores the roots of both religious and economic fundamentalism.
During his interview Princeton educated Changez (Riz Ahmed) tells Bobby (Liev Schreiber) how he embraced the American dream becoming a brilliant business analyst with a glittering future in Wall Street due to the support of his boss and mentor Jim Cross (Keifer Sutherland). Also how he found the perfect girlfriend in the beautiful and sophisticated photographic artist Erica (Kate Hudson).
Yet in the aftermath of the attacks on the Twin Towers Changez’s life and mind-set is shattered as he is suddenly treated as an outsider and a pariah. Completely disillusioned he returns to Pakistan a changed man.
No one are what they seem in this fascinating and gripping suspense filled drama which is told from Changez point of view.
It is a race against time as Bobby tries to extricate from Changez the whereabouts of a kidnapped American academic whose life is under threat.
Nair very skilfully builds up the tension by intercutting the interview with compelling flashbacks.
This is a film which challenges the West’s idea of a fundamentalist by putting a human face to him.
You can’t help but empathize with Changez as you watch the appalling treatment he endures at the hands of xenophobic and gunho Americans but also due to Ahmed’s charismatic, intense and honest performance which is by far his best to date.
The question is is he or isn’t he a fundamentalist? The film very cannily leaves it up to you to decide.
4/5 stars
By Maria Jose
