Writer Hanif Kureshi has long been interested in the clash between Western decadence and fanatical Islam which, perceptively, he sees as a war that occurs not between civilisations but within individuals or, as in this film based on one of his books, families. In exploring the conflict between a secularised immigrant and his devout son, the film looks in all the right places, and is full of fine little cameo performances; but I didn't find it a wholly satisfactory affair. Om Puri's character (the father) is needed to hold the story together, but the part feels more like just one more cameo, albeit extended: it's a nicely drawn portrait of a man, but also a shallow one. Also, the film seems dated by its origins pre-dating 9/11. Kureshi refers back, albeit obliquely, to the Salman Rushie affair that first made political Islam an issue in the U.K.; subsequent terrorist atrocities have made the broad subject of this movie more pertinent, but its details less so. Perhaps the real problem is that we never really get to understand the son, who remains a mystery to us as much as he is to his father: an examination of the psychology of fanaticism, or (to cast it in a kinder light) simply that of belief, is strangely absent from the film.
Review of My Son the Fanatic
