DVD The Reluctant Fundamentalist

I saw a screening of the film at the BFI film festival in London and Mira Nair's intro really did set the tone for the film. She mentioned how there have been countless accounts of the attacks from the viewpoint of those who died to protect democracy but what of all the innocent lives lost in the process? She wanted to give the viewpoint of the war on terror from the other side, who in one stroke of the brush have been deemed extremists or terrorists. She wanted to use this film as a platform to start a dialogue between the East and West, to tell a story of contemporary Pakistan which is caught between whether its identity should be pro or anti-American without realizing it has to choose neither but develop a "Pakistani identity".

And a dialogue it was. Quite literally. The journalist Changez talked to had perhaps become a reluctant fundamentalist in his own right, living in Lahore but after viewing the atrocities of the Taliban, reverting to the CIA. There are beautiful touches added to the film like linking religious fundamentalism with economic fundamentalism – like the ruthlessness of capitalism where money and success are the only motivation versus the blind hate of religious extremism, both ideologies pursued without regard for who suffers as a result.

It's a very fine balance to keep from tipping into either extreme and Mira Nair presented it beautifully. I read the book and I was afraid of the treatment – a British Asian playing the lead role did not conform to the image of Changez I had in my mind and I was afraid that the essence would be lost. But he managed to pull it off. The movie was adapted quite well. Every character had a story, nobody was good or evil, and everyone's behaviour had a consequence on the decisions made by other characters. It was a story of humanity where we are all the same yet cannot seem to get over the colour of the other person's skin.

As a director, Mira is blunt – she shows things as they are. Rather than seeing an aerial view of the Badshahi mosque or the glossy shops of Liberty, we see the gritty part of Lahore. The film is ambitious – set in five countries and telling a complex story but I think it succeeds. It's not that I don't have problems with the film but I highly doubt someone else could have told it so well. It seamlessly integrates the beautiful sounds of Pakistani music from the highs and lows of qawwali to the beautiful poetry of Faiz.

As a Pakistani who has worked on Wall street, I have seen reluctant fundamentalists pop up everywhere post-9/11 with the polarizing "with us or against us" Bush ideology, unapologetic racial profiling at airports, media portrayal of Pakistan as a cultural backwater, etc. I am glad someone is telling the story of how they came to be, how people who were once proud to be American withdrew back to their former identities, albeit reluctantly, but through the actions of the few people who unfortunately will have no interest in watching this movie because they are not interested in a dialogue. No, the only viewpoint that matters to them is their own.

For those who have read Mohsin Hamid's brilliant novel on which this film is based the story will be easier to follow than the somewhat disconnected screenplay that was written by Hamid with Ami Boghani and William Wheeler. Mira Nair directs, and knowing her previous work suggests that it is this very disconnect that she wishes to emphasize in this profoundly moving film – in these times of global unrest and fear because of terrorist acts we don't know who to trust and who to dislike, but the answer is that there is no right or wrong. Nair achieves this by beginning her film with a conversation between an American journalist Bobby (Liev Schreiber) and a Pakistani professor Changez (Riz Ahmed) in a setting of high tension in a bar in Lahore and our initial belief is that the Bobby represents the core we trust and with whom we identify, that Changez is the unknown 'different culture' stranger who is suspect. In the course of the film that position is deeply altered. And that is where the power of the message is so affecting. But we must go through flashbacks of eleven years to understand the real drama.

Changez Khan (the very handsome and very fine actor Riz Ahmed) lives with his poet father Abu (Om Purl) and mother Ammi (Shabana Azmi) in Pakistan. The family is poor but educated and Changez decides to go to America to find his place in the corporate world of money and success – and help support his family (his sister is ready to marry but the family can ill afford a traditional wedding). Changez arrives in America, attends university, and rises rapidly, gaining a position with a Wall Street company that specializes in financial advising for business internationally. The head of the company Jim Cross (Kiefer Sutherland) personally picks Changez after testing his skills and sends Changez on missions to the Philippines etc where he examines the finances, cuts waste (and jobs of workers) and makes the businesses run efficiently, increase profits, but sacrificing the working class. On one such mission Changez is asked to analyze a publishing house in Istantbul, the owner Nazmi (Haluk Bilginer) has translated Changez' fathers poetry into Turkish, and pleads with Changez not to destroy his publishing house. Cross demands Changez shut it down and Changez refuses and submits his resignation. As he prepares to pack to return, jobless, to the US he is watching television and the twin towers of 9/11 are being attacked. His attempts to return to the US are met with police and airport interrogations since he is not a native born American, and this allows the viewer to witness the horrible and demeaning treatment 'foreigners' received in the wake of 9/11.

Changez does return to New York and has another setback with his photographer artist girlfriend Erica (Kate Hudson), herself deeply bruised by the loss of her lover in a car crash she caused in the recent past, who has an art opening that includes videos and images of bits of conversation she has shared with Changez – information which in the exhibition further underlines the concept of Changez as a potential terrorist. Changez flees to Pakistan, becomes an anti-violence but fiery professor whose students seek to rid their Pakistan of the American intruders. And this is where the conversation at film's beginning ultimately makes sense (it is now 2011). The manner in which the film ends is left for the viewer to experience. As in the book there are many sidebar stories and characters that underline the stories of both Bobby (who has been talked into joining the CIA) and Changez who moves from his love of the American Dream and his sweetheart, to his spiritual commitment to his Pakistan. These characters, as well as many others in this film, allow us to see there is no one way to view acts as right or wrong. It is all perception and hopefully this brilliant film will assist us in understanding the confusion that deeply affects us all everyday as we walk around the topic of terrorism. Grady Harp, May 13