Brick Lane (2008)

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+