Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

22nd September 2013

By Gordon Foote.

Changez Khan is a financial analyst.  He works on Wall Street, having been handpicked from Princeton, by Underwood-Samson for “one of the most sought after jobs in the entire world”. He earns in excess of $100,000 a year, has a flat in Manhattan, and a beautiful girlfriend. Then 9/11 happens. Changez is Pakistani. Following the attacks on the twin towers, he watches in horror as the country he has adopted as his home hardens in defence and people of his ethnic background come to be viewed with an air of mistrust and hostility.   Of course, the same hostility was met by most people of middle-eastern and Indian descent in America at that time, and most of those were not living the high life. About half way through the Reluctant Fundamentalist, my brain bounced a scene from Crank to its forefront, in which Chev Chelios pulls a taxi driver from his vehicle, throws him to the ground and shouts “Al-Qaeda!” to create a diversion, before stealing the car. One has to wonder what this taxi driver’s response to the situation was (after the bones had healed). Did he go back to his penthouse, sit down in a £1000 leather chair and whinge about the racial injustice creeping back into American society, moralize about his lost culture, or grow increasingly callous to those around him?

Or did he struggle to pay the hospital bills, have to wait for his taxi to be replaced by the insurance company, losing earnings every day until the new vehicle appeared, then have to get back on the road to do the same job because he didn’t have the financial security, the liberty, to just up and quit?   Unfortunately, as soon as this thought had taken hold, it was very hard to shake, despite two particularly unpleasant scenes where Changez is forced to endure a strip search at the airport, and is attacked. I don’t want to come across as uncaring. Let me be clear on this topic, I would not wish either of these things on anyone, but I think…I hope, perhaps, that it would take more than these events to turn me against my country and also, that I would have enough empathy, enough of a view of the bigger picture to understand that these were not indicative acts, merely the result of an outpouring of fear and anger. For a professional analyst, I feel his conclusion at this point is poor.

As such, we follow Changez through a series of upsets which largely seem to be over-reactions on his part, or of his own making, each of which push him further and further from his idyllic existence and away from American life. It’s difficult to know how you’re meant to react to Changez who, instead of using his skills and relative wealth to help others in his position, just goes a little bit emo instead…
It’s frustrating that more attention wasn’t paid to the storytelling as there is a lot to like in The Reluctant Fundamentalist: performances are strong for the most part with Riz Ahmed giving a powerful performance as Changez. He effortlessly manages to keep interest in the character despite the script problems, and I would love to see him get more work on the back of it. The British actor conveys the complex, conflicting emotions within Changez excellently, never taking him too far away from the audiences sympathy, always keeping him relatable.

Ahmed is supported by a few familiar faces. Primary amongst these is Kiefer Sutherland, who delivers a great turn as Jim Cross, Changez’ boss. His stage presence and severity are used to wonderful effect and there is an obvious chemistry between him and Ahmed.
Liev Schreiber also does well in the role of, journalist, Bobby Lincoln. Though not a big part, he brings his A-game, easily sharing screen time with Ahmed without being overshadowed. Sadly, of the main cast, only Kate Hudson fails to impress, coming off as flat and uninteresting in her portrayal of love interest, Erica. Despite a good portion of the film being turned over to the budding relationship between Changez (both in his high-flying days, and on his slippery descent) and Erica, whose previous boyfriend died in a tragic car accident some months earlier, it only seems to be there as a lazy plot device and the pair have next to no synergy together.   The direction, courtesy of Mira Nair is good, though your tolerance for unnecessary use of shaky camera effects will be tested at times. She spends time well in building worlds; the cold, lonely, quick-fire grey, corporate locales of New York are juxtaposed with the warm, family-orientated, reds and oranges of Lahore. It’s clear Nair is not scared to take the time to tell the story as she wants to tell it either, ample time dedicated to character development, which ultimately sits at the heart of this movie – the film is about Changez and it would have been fatal to underestimate the importance of selling him to the audience.

I really wanted to like this film more. Riz Ahmed’s performance won me over early, and I enjoyed the majority of scenes throughout. Sadly, the script and standard of storytelling are not good enough to support what Nair is trying to do, nor do they present anywhere near enough justification for Changez’ eventual abandonment of the American Dream. I have never read the novel and as such, can’t comment on whether this is a problem inherent with the story being adapted, or because of a poor transition to the big screen, but either way, for me at least, it proved to be a deal-breaker.
It’s a shame the core fundamentals of the film were not shored up, as a truly revisionist look at 9/11 is not something cinema has felt comfortable tackling properly yet, and perhaps won’t for some time to come. A look at the consequences of that day, not for the W.A.S.P brigade but for flag waving Americans who happened to be of eastern descent, would make for a fascinating piece. Sadly, this is only a half-way house; an overly ambitious, under thought out project which dips its toe in the murky waters before deciding to pull back and stand on the bank scowling.

3/5

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