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Brick Lane
Sony Pictures Classics


6.4

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 5 votes
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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...

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.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Beautifully acted and written so its themes are touched upon glancingly rather than with full force.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A sensitive and occasionally poetic film, Brick Lane is an absorbing tale of personal empowerment and emotional growth.

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.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

A slow-moving but heartfelt film.

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.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie has a vibrant, sturdy pathos in the manner of Dickens.

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.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Absorbing enough, moving enough, and visually attractive enough to provide a perfectly acceptable night out at the movies.

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.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Taken for what it is, Brick Lane is something entirely its own.

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.

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.

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Restrained and decorous to a fault.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

One of those feminist cries in the dark in which the heroine, a saintly sufferer, is more admirable than interesting.

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.

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.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Wraps a sari around the kind of suffering-housewife picture that became a cliché 30 years ago.

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.

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.

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.

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 6.4 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jay H. gave it a7:
Fine drama, beautifully acted, poignant story. Well thought out direction, good screenplay, fine cinematography. It has a few slow stretches, but overall a very rewarding film.

Harriet C. gave it a6:
Full of promise but falls short on the delivery. Beautiful story and lovely cinematography but I was waiting to be touched, deeply touched as the story had the opportunity to do. Maybe that was the intention but as a film goer I want to be swept into it all.

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Brick Lane Sony Pictures Classics

Brick Lane
Sony Pictures Classics