The Reluctant Fundamentalist – A Broken Bridge Between Cultures.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a movie with a message.  Let us not talk about the acting, the structure or even the story.  It does not seem that is what this film wants us to talk about anyway.  This is a film about miscommunication between cultures, about stereotyping.  An “us” and “them” film.  And the “them” here is the U.S. and its corrupted values.

Directed by Mira Nair, based on a novel by Moshin Hamid and scribed by Ami Boghani, Rutvik Oza and William Wheeler, the story unfolds in two timelines.  One showing the central character, Wall street whiz Changez (Riz Ahmed), and his journey as he turns his back to the riches and values of the west; the other one involving the same character as a central figure, now Professor Changez, in a race against the clock to save a hostage kidnapped by Islamic extremists – fundamentalists.

Cultural miscommunication abounds, and ugly Americans come in all flavors.  Anecdotes after anecdotes are used to illustrate stand-ins for diverse members of western society: the college community, the self-made man, the black man, the cop, the airport security men, the street passersby, the liberal chick.

All these people do not understand that Changez is a good man from a different and rich culture that, as he repeatedly says, loves America.  A man with the work ethic and drive that is rewarded in America, with a father who is a celebrated and translated poet, a sister who wants to be an actress, a mother that cooks good food.  Not a man whose father had a bad haircut and a cheap suit.  The cultural blinders and insensitivity that Americans have against this most human person finally make Changez reject Western culture and embrace the view of the U.S as an imperialist oppressor.  And that is what he teaches in Lahore University, among radicalized students within a hotbed of protest against the local police, government and, of course, the U.S.

In the world as presented, all U.S. nationals in Pakistan are CIA agents.  The kidnapped hostage is accused of being one, though he is ostensibly another university professor.  Changez is being interviewed by an award winning international journalist from America (Liev Schreiber) who has been living in Pakistan since before 9/11.  But in the end, the journalist confesses to Changez that the kidnapped professor recruited him to be part of the spook Company.

Misunderstood Muslims are routinely sacrificed, in character as well as in body, in the name of protecting America and national security.  In the end, this realization strikes the journalist and, perhaps, he realizes how wrong he is to make assumptions about the people he has been living among for the last seven years.   That perhaps fundamentalism can not only be religious but can be materialistic too, and this is what may be at the core of the clash between Islamic and Western cultures.

The most valuable lesson this preachy film has is the insight into how most mainstream western films must look like to other cultures. When these films in turn gloss over and stereotype other cultures and members of society for the purpose of making story, in most cases they will likely seems preachy to “them”.

CJ Rangel, May 26 2013