Perhaps director Mira Nair’s most overtly political film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist uses the story of one Pakistani man’s shattered relationship with America to critique the American Dream, the War on Terror, Islamophobia, American exceptionalism, and fundamentalist ways of thinking. An adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s novel of the same name, Riz Ahmed stars as Changez Khan, an exceptional young man on the rise amongst New York’s corporate movers and shakers, who is sent down a different path after the 9/11 terror attacks.
Yet, The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s message is muddied by the many disparate elements crammed into its runtime, including a tense, day-long standoff between students and cops, a series of miscommunications, and one extremely traumatic and drawn-out romance. It also suffers from its own focus upon an idealized Muslim protagonist.
Nair frames the plot of The Reluctant Fundamentalist within a hostage situation in Pakistan—a very different take from the source material, which is much less fraught—when an American professor at Lahore University is snatched off the street. With the CIA desperate to find the terrorists who have perpetrated this kidnapping, they hone in on Changez, a somewhat radical economics professor at the same school. American expat and journalist Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber) approaches the controversial figure with a loaded interview request, allowing the film to shift into a telling of one man’s remarkable journey from Pakistan to America and back again.
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While Changez relays his life story, civil unrest brews visibly and violently between his loyal students and corrupt local police officers. The added political drama that swirls around the film’s main story feels quite sensationalist, bringing a tense thriller element that feels unnecessary and distracts from the core tale—because the true focus of The Reluctant Fundamentalist is Changez.
The professor patiently relays the arc of his American-aligned exceptionalism, starting from his humble beginnings in Lahore and his Ivy League scholarship to his fast-tracked role as the youngest associate at a prestigious valuation firm in New York. On the side, Changez also dates Erica (Kate Hudson), a born-into-privilege street photographer, the bonus on top of the seemingly fulfilling, high-status American life he desires as a young man. All this serves to make Changez seem special, unique, and better than everyone else—it’s clear that he’s not an everyman character.
The tide turns, of course, after the events of 9/11. Suddenly, Changez’s idealized position within American society amounts to virtually nothing. He is subjected to every form of Islamophobia: from humiliating airport strip searches and racial profiling to unsolicited comments about Osama bin Laden and respectability politics. A couple of older men in a bodega laud Changez for being properly “suited and booted” in his Wall Street attire, but in a voice-over he admits to feeling just as scared and targeted as his Muslim elders.
As the film’s protagonist, viewers feel deeply for Changez, but we have also been primed to think of him as exceptional and undeserving of this terrible treatment. Other unnamed and less fortunate Muslim characters are briefly held in stark contrast to him, such as a random man on the street suffering from a mental health episode. Their lives and experiences appear to be of lesser importance in The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s point of view. For example, one student is killed while helping Changez, and the film focuses more on Changez’s reaction than the story of the innocent man. The main character’s own exceptionalism serves as a hurdle that the film fails to clear.
Despite its too-polished central figure, the film has a thought-provoking perspective and admirable goal of portraying what it was like for Muslims living in America during the aftermath of 9/11, but the somewhat clunky and stuffed script hinders the message. (It would be so much better served by skipping most of the doomed romance between Changez and Erica.)
Fortunately, the film is anchored by Ahmed’s incredibly layered performance. He deftly shifts from the idealistic Ivy League prodigy and brilliant corporate analyst to the broken outcast and later enlightened professor whose unreadability provides the quieter tension in the political-thriller element of the film.
The deeply allegorical tale of Changez’ youthful pursuit of the American Dream to becoming disillusioned and rejecting the path he had been set on is full of criticism of different levels of post-9/11 American culture—including social, economic, and political. Changez prickles when his colleague offers friendly advice about keeping his face clean-shaven (respectability politics rears its head, again) as he chooses to reject corporate social norms and feel closer to his own heritage by growing out his beard.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist also delves into the many ways that Islamophobia spread its influence throughout everyday American life, turning patriotic souls like Changez into embittered individuals, ready to cut ties with American ideals and chart a new, independent way of thinking. But this is not to the point of equating the rejection of American hegemony to embracing extreme terrorism—rather the story states that these two fundamentalist ways of viewing the world render equally blind and abusive. Changez ultimately turns from both systems, which try to claim him and, unfortunately, still manage to do harm to the non-violent professor.
But it’s clear that American intervention has still caused the most pain and suffering to innocent people, and that is a message worth focusing on as it encompasses many more victims than just a single shining example.
This review is part of our Director Retrospective series on Mira Nair. Check out our past series here, where we discuss the works of Wong Kar-wai, Hayao Miyazaki, and others!
