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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
64
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69
Ashes of Time Redux
68
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54
Battle in Seattle
76
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55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
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Breakfast with Scot
63
Changeling
47
Choke
84
Christmas Tale, A
41
Cthulhu
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
xx
Dostana
62
Duchess, The
46
Dukes, The
63
Eden
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
26
Filth and Wisdom
28
Fireproof
82
Frozen River
43
Gardens of the Night
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
54
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30
Guitar, The
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
31
Hounddog
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
47
How About You
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
40
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78
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63
JCVD
27
Lake City
82
Let the Right One In
89
Man on Wire
84
Momma's Man
51
Morning Light
34
My Name Is Bruce
xx
Nobel Son
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
75
Pool, The
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
82
Rachel Getting Married
56
Religulous
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
53
RocknRolla
57
Sixty Six
85
Slumdog Millionaire
57
Special
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
82
Tell No One
83
Trouble the Water
43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Filth and Wisdom
xx
Dostana
xx
Nobel Son
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Brick Lane
Sony Pictures Classics
 |
|
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some sexuality and brief strong language
Starring
Tannishtha Chatterjee,
Satish Kaushik,
Christopher Simpson,
and
Zafreen
Nazneen’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of seventeen. Forced into an arranged marriage to an older man, she exchanges her Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London’s East End. In this new world, pining for her home and her sister, she struggles to make sense of her existence – and to do her duty to her husband. A man of inflated ideas (and stomach), he sorely tests her compliance. Told from birth that she must not fight her fate, Nazneen submits, devoting her life to raising her family and slapping down her demons of discontent. Until the day that Karim, a hot-headed local man, bursts into her life. Against a background of escalating racial tension, they embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her life. Set in multicultural Britain, Brick Lane is a truly contemporary story of love, cultural difference, and ultimately, the strength of the human spirit. (Sony Pictures Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Monica Ali (novel)
Laura Jones
Abi Morgan
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Sarah Gavron
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: June 20, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
102 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Tells a story we think we already know, but we're wrong: It has new things to say within an old formula.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Beautifully acted and written so its themes are touched upon glancingly rather than with full force.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
A sensitive and occasionally poetic film, Brick Lane is an absorbing tale of personal empowerment and emotional growth.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The characters in Brick Lane must define themselves and determine where "home" is before they can move forward, and that dramatic conflict lies at the heart of this motion picture.
75
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
A slow-moving but heartfelt film.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
While the film pivots around Nazneen, perhaps at the expense of other characters, it doesn't sell her short. This is a rich, revealing and elegant portrait, and one well worth spending time with.
75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
The movie has a vibrant, sturdy pathos in the manner of Dickens.
70
Variety
Robert Koehler
Monica Ali's elegant and critically trumpeted debut novel, Brick Lane, about the travails, conflicting emotions and quiet liberation of a Muslim woman in London, is a far lesser thing in its bigscreen transformation.
70
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
Absorbing enough, moving enough, and visually attractive enough to provide a perfectly acceptable night out at the movies.
70
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Certainly touching, even heart-rending at times, and it mostly steers clear of the didacticism and sentimentality its subject matter often invites. But it never takes the full measure of its modest heroine, and makes her world a bit too small.
67
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
Taken for what it is, Brick Lane is something entirely its own.
67
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Like many things about Brick Lane, this story is dealt with in too cursory and pat a fashion. The film's heart can't be faulted, but its head is working in a regrettably low gear.
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
A thoughtful and often evocative drama of identity and assimilation, but she leaves Nazneen so cocooned in her protective shell of disconnection that we can't connect emotionally.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
The arc of Nazneen's character, from drudge to feminist heroine, is predictably saintly. Chanu is a far more intriguingly human figure, the redeemed fool.
63
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Restrained and decorous to a fault.
63
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Easily, the best character in the film is Nazneen's tubby husband, who's been angling to take the family back to Bangladesh.
60
New York Daily News
Joe Neumaier
Well-acted and grounded in reality, Brick Lane is never overly emotional, even when it deals with the days after 9/11.
58
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
One of those feminist cries in the dark in which the heroine, a saintly sufferer, is more admirable than interesting.
58
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
Brick Lane comes far too late to be groundbreaking, and tries to do too much to be fully coherent, but its talent for avoiding obvious choices on all fronts, narratively and stylistically, make it worth a look.
50
Los Angeles Times
Jan Stuart
Brick Lane has been whittled down from Monica Ali's expansive 2003 novel into a glossy but overly efficient drama that, like Nazneen's husband, is ultimately too ineffectual to make much of a dent.
50
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Wraps a sari around the kind of suffering-housewife picture that became a cliché 30 years ago.
50
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
For most of the movie, we feel as trapped as she does, and the lurching narrative seems anything but novelistic.
50
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
The movie is notable for its perceptive take on issues facing immigrants, and atmospherically photographed by Robbie Ryan (Red Road), but its flat, static quality belies the novel's richness.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
Has beautiful scenery and some enjoyable moments but leaves the viewer feeling the need to find the book to get the rest of the story.
50
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
Even as Brick Lane manages to sidestep one formula, it falls prey to another.
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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