“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” - Mira Nair

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” is a 2012 political thriller drama film based on the 2007 novel ( The Novel by Pakistani Author Mohsin Hamid) , the Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, Directed by Mira Nair, Starring Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson in lead.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist takes place at a café in Lahore, during dusk. It is set in the years after the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Changez is the main protagonist, born & raised in Lahore, Pakistan. His family is quite wealthy ( seen in a Pakistani way). He works very hard to fulfill his A. D., works at 3 off-campus jobs. And he is very proud of being seen as a “New  Yorker”, and he is very polite and self confident. And he is talking to an unnamed American about his life in America. And he is presented as an above average foreigner who is forced work harder than any of his Princeton peers. After the 9/11 attacks, Changes must adjust his life in the changing America; subsequently changing himself.

Erica is main heroine of the story, she is young and beautiful woman who meets Changez in Greece and good friends with Changez. She is suffered from mental illness and depression.

The central idea of the movie is Fundamentalism. The question throughout the movie that is asked is “are you willing to change your fundamental beliefs even at the expense of others? And the other concept of the movie is about judgment, which play a big role in the book after the 9/11 attack happens. Identity and Belonging  also significance in the movie because in this film Changez holds identity within his homeland, but his belonging in corporate America. And Changez begins to feel a dissonance between his identity and where he apparently belongs; inevitably leading to him getting fired and there are also empires and their self destructive nature in present movie because essentially there are the parallel being made between Erica and America. After 9/11 Changez is confronted with distrust and prejudices and at the and he goes back to Pakistan and works there as a professor of finance at the local university.