My Son the Fanatic (1997)

Although it finds a lot of humor in the collision between immigrant and native, liberal and fundamentalist, My Son the Fanatic is actually a bittersweet drama that resists easy resolution of its many well-delineated conflicts. Director Udayan Prasad and cinematographer Alan Almond deftly juggle characters and locales as they explore both the facades and the realities of an average Western city. Om Puri is terrific as Parvez, the Pakistani cab driver whose few pleasures in life include listening to old jazz records and watching his son grow up. Rachel Griffiths is similarly spot-on as Bettina, the prostitute who longs for new experiences and sees more than just a Paki cabbie in Parvez's grizzled but kindly countenance. Akbar Kurtha and Gopi Desai don't get as much screen time, or generate as much sympathy, as Parvez's dutiful wife and fundamentalist son, but even when Hanif Kureishi's script stacks the deck against these characters it never wholly dismisses their viewpoints and motivations; the film may poke fun at the ironies of an anti-capitalist Islamic holy man who watches cartoons, runs up Parvez's utility bills, and wants to immigrate to the "corrupt" United Kingdom, but Schitz (Stellan Skarsgard), the wanton, casually racist German businessman, helps portray the equally ugly extremes of Western liberalism. Fizzy (Harish Patel), Parvez's wealthy but judgmental friend, likewise represents the hypocrisy of immigrants whose loyalties are divided between profit and propriety. Posing more questions than it answers, this multifaceted film explores writer Kureishi's perennial themes with more nuance and depth than any before. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide