East Is East Review
by "Jonathan F Richards" (MOVIECRITIC AT prodigy DOT net)June 7th, 2000
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
EAST IS EAST
Directed by Damien O'Donnell
Screenplay by Ayub Khan-Din
With Om Puri, Linda Bassett
De Vargas R 96 min
When English mother Ella Khan (Linda Bassett) calls her offspring, it's Meena, Saleem, Maneer, Nazir, Tariq, Sajid, and Abdul. When she calls her husband, it's George. This is not the least of the ironies in which this sometimes probing, sometimes pratfalling social comedy of the English melting pot is steeped.
George Khan (Om Puri of My Son the Fanatic) is a Pakistani who by the early '70s when the movie begins has been living in Manchester for many years, but who hangs onto his roots like an ironwood on a muddy riverbank. He's taken himself out of the old country, but he'll be damned if he'll let the old country out of his English-born kids, who don't know from Pakistan and could care less. His wife is an English lass, but his sons will marry Pakistanis, and he'll do the arranging, just like back home. As the story opens, George is preparing to marry off his oldest son Nazir (Ian Aspinall) to a Pakistani bride he has never met. When Nazir bolts from the altar, George writes him out of the family, and clamps down on the rest of his brood.
George is something of a monster, but only when he's crossed, which isn't a bad definition of a monster. He's lovable when things are going smoothly, and there's a genuine sweetness to the affection between him and Ella. But when anyone in his family resists his orders, he becomes mean, and worse, violent. He's a terrible hypocrite, his English wife and his fish-and-chips shop at odds with his super-Paki prejudice, but we're not sure why. If you asked him - as his kids do - he'd clout you.
Yet most of this movie of cultural preservation vs. assimilation in prejudice-ridden working-class England is very funny. It's got a knowing script, adapted by Ayub Khan-Din from his successful play and mounted by first-timer Damien O'Donnell. The ensemble cast defines each of the characters distinctly but keeps it a completely credible family, from the older kids down to little Sajid (Jordan Routledge), who's so confused about his identity that he's always hidden inside the hood of his parka like the kid in South Park. And both Puri and Bassett are simply wonderful, expert at showing the humanity that is at the root of their many contradictions.
O'Donnell does a good job, and gives us a splendid movie, but you can't help thinking that with a bit more experience he might have found a way to integrate the different moods more seamlessly, and blend the comic styles, which range from genuine moments to Richard Lesterian flights of madcappery. They make us laugh, but we're not always in the same universe.
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