My Son the Fanatic

In a small city in the English midlands, a Pakistani immigrant named Parvez (Om Puri) works long hours driving a cab to provide modest comfort for his disapproving wife, Minoo (Gopi Desai), and better opportunities for his collegiate son, Farid (Akbar Kurtha). When Farid breaks off his engagement ...more

Although it finds a lot of humor in the collision between immigrant and native, liberal and fundamentalist, My Son the Fanatic is actually a bittersweet drama that resists easy resolution of its many well-delineated conflicts. Director Udayan Prasad and cinematographer Alan Almond deftly juggle characters and locales as they explore both the facades and the realities of an average Western city. Om Puri is terrific as Parvez, the Pakistani cab driver whose few pleasures in life include listening ...more