MOVIE COMPANY: MIRAMAX
CAST: Om Puri, Rachael Griffiths, Stellan Skarsgard and more.
DIRECTED BY:Â Udayan Prasao
PRODUCED BY:Â Chris Curling
INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0119743
TYPE OF MOVIE: Comedy, Romance and Drama
DURATION:Â 87 minutes
Academy Award nominee Rachael Griffiths (Hilary and Jackie, My Best Friend’s Wedding) stars in a critically acclaimed story of unlikely love set against a clash of cultures and generations! Parvez is a cab driver who left Pakistan in search of a better life for his family. Now he feels that he is losing his only son, Farid, to the conservative beliefs he abandoned long ago. Meanwhile, Parvez befriends a compassionate woman (Griffiths) and finds the comfort, support and tenderness he does not have with his own family. When the disapproving Farid discovers this relationship, however, an uncomfortable situation boils over as Parvez is forced to choose between the son he adores…and the woman who understands him!
DVD EXTRAS:
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, HiFi Sound
• Widescreen anamorphic format
KNOWN DVD SECRET(S): None at this time
DVD REVIEW:
I have to admit that I was curious about this DVD. It has gotten the thumbs up from Roger Ebert and a comment from the LA Times but one of the things that prevented me from purchasing this DVD is the lack of any special feature. For any DVD purchaser, a DVD with hardly anything is bad but for a movie purchaser, you just hope that the price you pay for the DVD that the movie is worth watching. “my son the fanatic” is one of those movies that I have to say…is worth watching.
For many foreign immigrants, a battle between the old and the young is the teachings of the old country and the accepting of the country you now live in. I lived through it with my own family but the thing with this movie, the son is the one who wants to go back to the conservative beliefs of Pakistan and the father that left the country to have a better life.
That was interesting to me and the way the movie played the friction between the family and the sort of lost soul, Parvez confused and not knowing how to deal with his son until he is forced too. His love for his family but also knowing what he wants and why he left his country is interesting.
You also see a little of the racial tension in this movie which I’m glad they covered in the movie.
Overall, this movie between beliefs, loyalty and moral decisions is where I give the movie it’s credits and how it approaches each of them. Parvez is taken from one point to the other really quickly and you wonder if this poor man would go mad.
A really good movie but unfortunately, this is a DVD review. The color is fine and since it’s a dialogue movie, you’re not going to hear special effects. The low point of this DVD which scores this slightly above average movie is the DVD itself. No extras, no special features and one of the few times I give a DVD on it’s lack of extras an F. No trailers, nothing. If you want to see a pretty cool movie on clash of cultures, I recommend this movie on DVD but if extras concern you, the DVD will be a letdown.
THE MOVIE:Â B-
THE DVD EXTRAS:Â F
THE DVD OVERALL:Â D+