THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST (Mira Nair, India/Pakistan/U.S.). 128 minutes. Sunday (September 16), 2:30 pm, Ryerson. See times. Rating: NNNN
In this assured adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s novel, Princeton-educated Changez (Riz Ahmed), a Pakistani émigré with a high-paying job at a U.S. financial firm specializing in mergers and takeovers, finds himself gradually transformed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Ahmed is excellent as a man outraged by his circumstances. He’s racially profiled at the airport and in the street, his photographer girlfriend (Kate Hudson) selfishly exploits their relationship for her art, and soon he’s repulsed by his work on Wall Street and quits, choosing to return to his home country to teach.
He tells his story to an American journalist (Liev Schreiber) who’s bent on finding out if Changez knows the whereabouts of a kidnapped professor, as students around them organize to protest the American presence in Pakistan.
Has Changez become a bona fide terrorist? Nair cranks up the tension before we find out.
But that conflict is secondary to what really matters here: the perspective of a man falling out of love with America.
