Synopsis for
Yasmin (2004) More at IMDbPro »

Yasmin is a 2004 drama directed by Kenneth Glenaan, written by Simon Beaufoy and starring Archie Panjabi as Yasmin and Renu Setna as her father, Khalid. It is set amongst a British Pakistani community in parts of Keighley (in West Yorkshire, England) before and after the events of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Building.

At the start of the film, English-Pakistani girl, Yasmin (Archie Panjabi), lives two lives in two different worlds: in her community, she wears Muslim clothes, cooks for her father (Renu Setna) and brother, Nassir (Sayed Ahmed) and has the traditional behaviour of a Muslim woman. On top of this, she has a non-consumated marriage with the illegal immigrant Faysal Husseini (Shahid Ahmed) who is a friend of the family from Pakistan. From Yasmins perspective, shes gone along with the marriage just in order to facilitate his getting a British passport, before divorcing him. We can only assume that from the familys perspective this has been an arranged marriage.

We gather early on in the story that Yasmins mother passed away some time ago. Yasmin is the eldest of two children; she has a younger, teenaged brother who sells marijuana in the community where they live. She is roughly around 24 years old. Yasmins father is elderly and whereas he tries very hard with his children to keep them in the Pakistani tradition whilst having a strong respect for Britain (something that many of the first immigrants from the 1950s to the 1970s felt) he is more or less powerless to prevent them from being the very British individuals products of their environments that both children have become.

When Yasmin is at home she dresses in traditional Pakistani costume in order to please her father mainly. However, when she goes to work, she changes her clothes and dresses like a Westerner. She drives a flashy VW Golf that she considers a pulling machine and is a well considered employee working for Social Services transporting and caring for Handicapped Children. She also has a good Caucasian male friend, John (Steve Jackson) who obviously fancies her. We get the impression that she feels the same way too.

In the second act, we see the instant and the immediate aftermath of the September, 11th attacks. The effect of those terrible events meant an upsurge in prejudice against the Muslim communities in many parts of Great Britain. In her job she endures prejudice when people start sticking Postik notes on her locker stating Yaz loves Osama referring to Osama Bin Laden. Shes eventually asked to take some paid leave and given no valid explanation. We see ordinary people in the pub looking down at her as well as yobs on BMXs attacking an innocent old Asian woman in the street who Yasmin comes to the aid of with cries of Piss Off.

We see how certain young male members of the once harmonious Pakistani community in Keighley go against their parents and start to become radicalised by corrupt readers of the Koran to rise up and fight against the West for the way that theyve started to demonise their whole religion and persecute their people. Yasmins younger brother downs the drugs and is easily recruited by a Radical Muslim Group.

Finally, after Yasmins husband is arrested on suspected terror charges that turn out to have no basis in reality, she too takes sides against the British establishment and changes her life, dressing in traditional costume, waiting for her husband outside a police station for days and eventually comforting him when he is released, traumatised without charge.

The end of the story is left very open ended. She gets divorced from Faysal as he gets his right to remain in the UK approved. But, she does not get back together with the Caucasian male friend and she continues to wear Pakistani costume and to look after her father. Her brother no longer speaks to his father who disapproves of the radical anti British company he is keeping, and the brother, now totally brainwashed by the Cause is ready to put his life on the line to retaliate against Western policy towards his people. Yasmin refuses to grant her blessing to him as he prepares to go to a training camp in Afghanistan. He begs her for her blessing but she wont give it. Between the White English characters, both of the young British-Pakistanis, the old Pakistani father and the newly arrived immigrant Faysal there are many huge contrasts in belief about what it is to be British. The film, Yasmin, provides us with a rich tapestry of ideas to pick from in what is effectively a British Identity Study through Film.

Is anybody really from anywhere? These characters all live within our borders and they all feel that they belong in some way or another whether because theyre white and English in heritage and have never really thought about their identity beyond that; or because they are brown skinned but at the same time brought up surrounded by Anglo-Saxon behaviour which they consider the norm (as opposed to the backward ways of Faysal the Pakistani cooking outside in the yard for example). Yasmins fathers interpretation on what it is to be British is based upon the Empire that we once had all around the world from which he came originally. He sees Britain as something very important, almost like a Parent State that must be respected even if culturally he feels that he must go along with Pakistani traditions.

By Stephen J. Alexander