My Son the Fanatic (1997)

Pakistani taxi-driver Parvez and prostitute Bettina find themselves trapped in the middle when Islamic fundamentalists decide to clean up their local town.

Director:

Udayan Prasad

Writers:

Hanif Kureishi (short story), Hanif Kureishi

Stars:

Om Puri, Rachel Griffiths, Akbar Kurtha

1 win & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Om Puri	...	Parvez
Rachel Griffiths	...	Bettina / Sandra
Akbar Kurtha	...	Farid
Stellan Skarsgård	...	Schitz
Gopi Desai	...	Minoo
Harish Patel	...	Fizzy
Sarah-Jane Potts	...	Madeline Fingerhut (as Sarah Jane Potts)
Judi Jones	...	Mrs. Fingerhut
Geoffrey Bateman	...	Chief Inspector Fingerhut
Bernard Wrigley	...	Drunk man
Moya Brady	...	Druggy prostitute
Badi Uzzaman	...	Man in mosque
Andy Devine	...	Comedian
Shiv Grewal	...	Waiter
Marc Anwar	...	Rashid (as Omar Salimi)

Storyline

Parvez was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and as a child was asked to study the Holy scriptures through a Maulvi. When the Maulvi started his sermon, Parvez would fall asleep, this lead to the Maulvi devising a unique punishment, which ultimately compelled Parvez to stop attending. When he grew up, his marriage was arranged with Minoo and they immigrated to a small town in Britain, where Parvez started to make a living driving a taxi, and found himself free from all religious activity. 25 years later, Parvez is an alcoholic, still driving a cab, while people who had immigrated after him have their own businesses and are wealthier. Parvez now has a grown son, Farid, who is the apple of his eye, and is to be engaged to Madeleine Fingerhut, who is the daughter of the local Chief Inspector. After the two families' meet, Farid has a sudden change of heart when he notices that the Chief Inspector detests his family, and it slowly dawns on him that he and his girlfriend are quite different, and ...

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Plot Keywords:

prostitute | taxi | taxi driver | pakistani | sex | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexuality, language and a scene of drug use

Details

Country:

UK France

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 January 1998 (France)

Also Known As:

Fiul meu, fanaticul

Filming Locations:

Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$38,399, 27 June 1999

Gross USA:

$417,683

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$417,683

Company Credits

Production Co:

Arts Council of England, BBC Films, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

[first lines]
Mrs. Fingerhut: [putting away photo album] Madeline was a delightful girl. She still is, of course.
Parvez: And a little bit plumpish at times. As you said, twice.
Minoo: [misunderstanding] Rice is very good. For reducing diet.
Parvez: Cricket is excellent. Farid was captain. Mrs. Fingerhut - Hilda - this boy of ours, I can assure you he's all-around type, going whole hog. But not on the field. At school he carried the prizes home. Now is college he's top student of year.
Parvez: Oh, it's not difficult.
Farid: [smirks]

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Connections

Featured in At the Movies: Wild Wild West/Buena Vista Social Club/My Son the Fanatic/South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut/The King of Masks (1999)

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Soundtracks

Into My World
Audioweb
Chrtsalis Music
© 1996 Mother Records
(Polygram Records)

User Reviews

Multicult gridlock

A Pakistani taxi driver in Britain (Om Puri) is plagued by a bad cosmic joke that seems co-written by Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis: his son, rather than becoming an unrecognizable assimilate, turns into a jihad-embracing Muslim fundamentalist. At the same time, the warmth of a white hooker (Rachel Griffiths) beckons, to the chagrin and hissing tongues of his local countrymen.

The writer Hanif Kureishi's onetime Benetton smugness has mellowed into ripe colors of rue, mockery and regret as he eases into middle age, and this adaptation of his short story is a lovely, surprisingly beautifully shot, sneakily haunting small movie. The dialogue sometimes has a novelish explicitness, and the performances are variable--Puri sometimes drifts into F. Murray Abraham terrain, but he has an amazing, craggy, pain-absorbent face. But the movie has a real subject: the ways in which postmod culture-hybridity isn't always a rainbow-colored day at the beach. And the warmth amid desperation of the central relationship suggests what Neil Jordan's MONA LISA might have been without the smoky-sax romanticism.

The sad thing about seeing this movie was that, after Miramax gave the movie one of their unceremonious heave-hos (par for the course for their good movies), the audience, unblanketed by buzz, hype, an aura of hot-ticket, reacted as shruggingly as critics seem to have. Too bad: MY SON THE FANATIC evokes the sweet, melancholy fatalism of seventies pictures like THE NICKEL RIDE and STRAIGHT TIME. It has the atmosphere of an overcast crime picture without the crime. And it has at least a handful of real, breathing people in it--as rare an occurrence these days as a flight of the dodo.