The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Changez Khan: Why are they harassing my family?
Bobby Lincoln: I don’t speak for the authorities, but it seems safe to assume – you’ve become a person of interest.
Changez Khan: And they make these assumptions based on what evidence? How do I… how do I become … uninteresting?

The above is one of the key dialogues and questions offered for your consideration in the brand new film from Director Mira Nair called The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A young man from Lahore, Pakistan comes to America to study in the mid-late 1990′s. He’s successful at Princeton and is later hired as a financial analyst by Underwood Sampson – a job described as one of the most desired in the entire world.

You have 20 minutes to convince me why you belong at Underwood Sampson

Changez Khan embraced and loved America. As he put it to Jim Cross played by Kiefer Sutherland at his recruitment interview while still at Princeton, In America, I get an equal chance to win. And whether you hire me or not, Jim, I am going to win. He meant of course the American dream – a successful career, a beautiful trophy wife, tons of money and everything else that came with it.

Changez: Whether you hire me or not Jim, I am going to win.
Jim: Good fucking answer.

And he was well on his way. His career at Underwood Sampson was fast-tracked. His girl friend Erica (Kate Hudson) was the niece of the head of the firm. Then came 9-11. Changez was off in Manila on a business trip with his colleagues when those unforgettable events happened. He learned of them while watching TV in his hotel room that very night.

After that, things changed. It’s not like Changez Khan’s star fell out of the sky, and crashed and burned. No, it was nothing as dramatic as that. But when the Underwood Sampson team returned from Manila later that month, it was Khan who was culled from the disembarking group.

Immigration Official: Are you an American citizen or a foreign national?
Changez Khan: A foreign national.
Immigration Official: May I see your passport please?
Immigration Official [looking at the Pakistan passport] Step over here…
Changez Khan: Is there a problem?
Immigration Official: Follow me please…

Which led to a full body search. And that was only the beginning.

Trishna

In 1891, Thomas Hardy‘s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles was published. It didn’t hit the book seller stalls immediately as it was serialized in a newspaper. While the original publication received mixed reviews, the book would later be called a classic novel and is likely still being read in English Lit classes even today.

The novel was produced as a silent film in 1913 and 1924. In the modern era, in 1979, Roman Polanski adapted the novel and released his film called Tess which starred Nastassja Kinski and Peter Firth. In 2008, the novel was made into a multi-part mini-series which aired on television (on BBC and in the USA on the PBS Masterpiece Classics series).

Which brings us to 2011. British Film Director Michael Winterbottom adapted the novel, or used it as the basis of his film; updating the setting from 19th Century England to the 21st century in modern-day India. Winterbottom has said that during the 19th Century, Britain had evolved from a rural and agrarian economy to a place that was the most dynamic urban and industrialized economy in the world. Yet is was a place where cultural differences not only still existed between the upper and lower class strata of society, but the whole fabric of society was based upon keeping the classes separate. Winterbottom went on to point out that it would be difficult to recreate that period of history, in a period film, in today’s England.

India, on the other hand, still offered, in its small towns and rural areas, places where class differences, economic differences, and cultural and educational differences where right there in front of people; there at the same time as societal changes were occurring. Yet there were still family traditions, outlooks on sexual conduct, and economic and religious customs that were still resistant to changes brought about by modern thinking. So that was thinking and background about why the film was set in India.

Trishna is both a love story and a tragedy. One could say it is the story of a woman who was destroyed by falling in love and her own circumstances.