My Son The Fanatic
The most shocking event in this father's life is about to bring him joy he never expected.
Academy Award nominee Rachel Griffiths (Hillary And Jackie, My Best Friend's Wedding) stars in a critically acclaimed story of unlikely love set against a clash of cultures and generations! Parvez is a cab driver who left Pakistan in search of a better life for his family. Now he feels that he is losing his only son, Farid, to the conservative beliefs he abandoned long ago. Meanwhile, Parvez befriends a compassionate woman (Griffiths) and finds the comfort, support and tenderness he does not have with his own family. When the disapproving Farid discovers this relationship, however, an uncomfortable situation boils over as Parvez is forced to choose between the son he adores...and the woman who understands him!
Member Reviews
Life in a northern town - luminol
The title is a bit of a misnomer. The son, is more of a side plot; basically you're here for the acting (Om Puri and Rachel Griffiths) and a tenuous off beat romance. There's more money to be made at night, so that's when Parvez plies his trade. He regularly crosses paths with Bettina who naturally gravitates to him because he doesn't look down his nose at her.
But Parvez does looks down his nose at some people, illiterates for example---but watch the scene where he picks up a German businessman from the airport. He avoids people of low morals. Yet the night owls he chauffeurs around all seem to be people of ill repute.
During the film I found myself essentially questioning his goodness. I don't believe he's a hypocrite, but there's definitely a question of how keenly he is seeing the world around him. He's walking on sunshine when he meets his future-in-laws, but one look from their white bred faces tells us, the feeling isn't mutual.
The great love he bears for his adopted country is a little heartbreaking since it clearly doesn't reciprocate the affection. The racism he experiences everyday is magnified for his son since---for all intents and purposes---he's British, born and raised. His son feels this rejection more keenly since it is without foundation.
There was a moment of delight when Bettina told Parvez---to paraphrase ever so slightly: the radicalization of the second generation immigrants in the west comes from systemic racism and the vapidness of materialism. Ouch!
One caveat for the film is that Hanif Kureishi hasn't written clear dramatic lines and symbols for the audience to follow; but opts for a more muted novelistic approach that underscores the irony and forces the audience themselves, to draw out the various parallels within the story.My Son the Fanatic - LuvMovies
Guess it isn't fair to try to review a movie that I couldn't watch to the end but it might save someone from renting it! The beginning was promising but it degenerated into the whore with a heart of gold putting out for free to her taxi driver. The son was there in the background but didn't feature as prominently as the title would have led you to believe he was going to. Not worth the time to persevere to see if it was going to amount to something.My Kureshi The Stereotyper - Chewie
This film, meant to represent the generational gap in a father-son relationship, is very difficult to watch in these times of global Muslim-bashing. A distinct uncomfortable feeling as to the 'critical acclaim' received by the film settled in as images of a young man being gradually brainwashed into the more violent aspects of fundamentalist Islam in a lower middle class English neighbourhood began weaving the tale that was to come. The boy's father, a taxicab driver who accepts to chauffer the neighbourhood protitutes unlike most of the other drivers, is depicted as 'modern' because of his embrace of all things Western from listening to American jazz music to glorifying English architecture. The son, who is disillusioned by the fact that he is rejected by his tentative in-laws, turns to Islam as a means of reclaiming his roots. This turn is seen as a 'backward' turn, a step down and away from the 'freedom and democracy' he has been so 'fortunate' to have been born into. There is no depiction of the rejection faced by the son via the in-laws, only a sense that the prejudice endured was nothing more than anecdotal and would not warrant such a radical return to faith.
The problem with the Islam that is portrayed in the film is that it is so radical and violent. This film only cements the negative stereotypes that exist about Muslims and Islam. The father eventually falls in love with a prostitute and is portrayed as being the most progressive of all.
Though the film is quick to criticize certain aspects of Islamic faith such as the exclusion and oppression of women, the boy's mother is not given a substantial voice at all. The only woman who speaks from her own point of view is the white English prostitute. The bizarre, loud and obnoxious German john (who is the only white man given a 'voice') is another stereotype that appears in the film.
Overall, this film does not offer complete portraits of the topics it takes on. Instead, there a
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Life in a northern town - luminol
The title is a bit of a misnomer. The son, is more of a side plot; basically you're here for the acting (Om Puri and Rachel Griffiths) and a tenuous off beat romance. There's more money to be made at night, so that's when Parvez plies his trade. He regularly ...My Son the Fanatic - LuvMovies
Guess it isn't fair to try to review a movie that I couldn't watch to the end but it might save someone from renting it! The beginning was promising but it degenerated into the whore with a heart of gold putting out for free to her taxi driver. The son was ...My Kureshi The Stereotyper - Chewie
This film, meant to represent the generational gap in a father-son relationship, is very difficult to watch in these times of global Muslim-bashing. A distinct uncomfortable feeling as to the 'critical acclaim' received by the film settled in as images of ...