The daily grind of a Brick Lane Bangladeshi is credibly brought to life in this sensitive and intelligent adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel.
Comment
03/19/08
Brick Lane (2008)
65
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:93
Fresh:60
Rotten:33
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Frustratingly slow-moving, but ultimately saved by Chatterjee's solid acting and Gavron's gentle patience.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Mar 20, 2008 Wide
US Box Office: $1,010,010
Synopsis: 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... [More]
Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, Christopher Simpson, Naeema Begum
Director: Sarah Gavron
Reviews for Brick Lane
Top CriticIt is, like all immigrant stories, about identity and Nazneen’s journey is both painful and touching.
03/19/08
Top CriticThe director, Sarah Gavron, came through documentaries and BBC TV drama. This is her first feature and she makes the film very sensual, as well as highly controlled.
03/21/08
Top CriticTannishtha Chatterjee, known in India for film and theatre work, is excellent as the vulnerable, isolated young woman who gradually builds herself into a resilient survivor who can smile and tame the pain of her world
03/11/08
Top CriticClick to read the article
04/23/09
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.
06/20/08
Top CriticIts flat, static quality belies the novel's richness.
07/11/08
Underwhelming.
11/16/07
Even when 9/11 is invoked the film doesn't so much suggest a melodrama of the heart and spirit as it does an explosion at a fabric store.
06/15/08
Feels as average as an ordinary TV movie.
06/19/08
[A] glossy but overly efficient drama that, like Nazneen's husband, is ultimately too ineffectual to make much of a dent.
06/20/08
Despite the fine performances, Brick Lane comes across as a nice soap opera when it promised much more.
10/18/08
Every conceivable choice on this film was met with the most obvious answer, and every turn comes right out of other movies.
06/07/08
Lazily relies upon the book's prestige to get by.
06/26/08
Taken for what it is, Brick Lane is something entirely its own.
07/18/08
A blandly earnest coming-of-age story.
10/18/08
The kind of meaningless middlebrow sludge that passes for “quality movie-making” in some of the more conservative sectors of the British film industry
11/15/07
Top CriticTo hint that a heroine might have any flaws whatsoever would be just a bit too modern for this picture.
06/20/08
[The film] hits all the clichés of romantic literary adaptation: montage, letters read aloud in voice-over, a swelling musical score.
07/04/08
Brick Lane is lovely to look at and the performances, particularly from Chatterjee and Kaushik, are delightful.
10/18/08
Latest News for Brick Lane
January 23, 2009:
A movie whose visuals are lovely to behold and lyrically awash in sensuality and desire, but sets the lives of women back at least a few centuries. 
More...
January 19, 2009:
A movie whose visuals are lovely to behold and lyrically awash in sensuality and desire, but sets the lives of women back at least a few centuries.
More...
June 19, 2008:
Critics Consensus: Get Smart Misses by That Much, Guru Gets No Love
This week at the movies, we've got wacky spies (Get Smart, starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway) and silly self-help specialists (The Love Guru starring Mike Myers and... More...
June 18, 2008:
Arranged marriage at center of cross-cultural drama set in London.
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