dvd of the week
If you were offended by Zero Dark Thirty, and there’s good reason to be, you may find solace in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is as subversively anti-American and anti-imperialist as Zero Dark Thirty was pro-American and pro-fascism. Based on the novel by Mohsin Hamid, it is the story of how Changez (Riz Ahmed) is transformed from extremely eager, extremely competitive capitalist – from Princeton to investment banking – into the heroic professor of anti-American student protesters (and possibly terrorists) in Lahore, Pakistan. Ahmed gives one of the great performances of this year, but as usual with most movies directed by Mira Nair there are too many missteps and odd moments to make it great film. (Kate Hudson, playing Changez’s American girlfriend, is particularly bad). Still, it’s a powerful story and a useful counter to the mindless anti-Muslim and silly jingoism of most American films.
