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My beautiful son >> Hanif Kureishi pens My Son the Fanatic
by MATTHEW HAYS
Based on a short story he wrote for the New Yorker, My Son the Fanatic will not disappoint Kureishi fans. Om Puri (Such a Long Journey) is the troubled father of a young man (Akbar Kurtha) who's alienated in contemporary Britain. Puri simply can't understand his son's disgruntlement. After all, poppa has worked long, hard hours as a cab driver for the past quarter century, all to provide for his family. Best of all, he has arranged for his son to marry a white woman who's the daughter of the town police chief. What could possibly be wrong? Kurtha is disgusted by the obvious distaste the police chief has for Puri; worse still, Puri appears to be fully aware of it too, but wants to look beyond the racist veneer and focus on the economic benefits of the union--not to mention the potential in newfound respectability. Kureishi's genius here is to switch the expected generation gap conflict: Father wants assimilation and marriage into white world, while son rejects his white fiancée and embraces radical Islam. Soon Kurtha invites a radical Muslim leader from Pakistan to move into the family home, and before anyone can say "Allah," the priest is soon running the household. Puri, meanwhile, is grappling with his growing bond with Rachel Griffiths, a good-natured prostitute who he often couriers about town from client to client. Cultures really do clash when Kureishi pits the puritanical, militant Muslims--including Puri's son--against Griffiths and her prostitute friends, neatly placing Puri in the middle of the violent protest. It's a confusing, shattering, distressing image of an uneasy British brand of multiculturalism. During the Thatcher years, Kureishi's films took on an urgency, when unemployment levels were at appalling highs and racial divisions seemed worse than ever. Though Britons are more prosperous now, My Son the Fanatic proves Kureishi hasn't missed a beat, maintaining his status as an accurate storyteller of the immigrant experience.
My Son the Fanatic opens Friday, July 16 at the Cinéma du Parc. See repertory listings for showtimes |
A bizarre collision of sex, race, politics and religion takes centre stage in the works of Hanif Kureishi. After the international success of his 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette (directed by Stephen Frears), the author and screenwriter became notorious for astutely capturing the conflicts of immigrants to the west and their familial conflicts over integration.