Brick Lane (2008)

Image credit: Joss Barratt

HEROINE CHIC Tannishtha Chatterjee is a saintly sufferer in an arranged marriage in London in the more admirable than interesting Brick Lane

Adapted from the 2003 Monica Ali novel, Brick Lane is one of those feminist cries in the dark in which the heroine, a saintly sufferer, is more admirable than interesting. In the 1980s, Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee), a beautiful teenager, is sent from her native Bangladesh to London for an arranged marriage. Sixteen years later, she is stuck on Brick Lane, the East End immigrant district, with a husband (Satish Kaushik) who rages away at the Anglo culture that won't invite him in. Nazneen endures his bad moods with a passivity that becomes a bit infuriating, since she barely seems a participant in the life that oppresses her. C+