The 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.
Comment
03/21/08
Brick Lane (2008)
57
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:12
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.3/10
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
1 - 11 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Top CriticThe daily grind of a Brick Lane Bangladeshi is credibly brought to life in this sensitive and intelligent adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel.
03/19/08
Top CriticIt is, like all immigrant stories, about identity and Nazneen’s journey is both painful and touching.
03/19/08
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 CriticBrick Lane is a grown-up movie. It recognizes that there are different kinds of love and that some of them don't involve happily-ever-afters.
07/31/08
Top CriticBrick Lane is about characters who have depth and reality, who change and learn, who have genuine feelings. And it keeps on surprising us, right to the end.
06/27/08
Top CriticA sensitive and occasionally poetic film, Brick Lane is an absorbing tale of personal empowerment and emotional growth.
06/26/08
Top CriticCertainly 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 CriticGavron's movie finds an unfashionably gentle, human optimism in the face of all this, and a sympathetic performance from Chatterjee makes it plausible.
11/16/07
Top CriticThe 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 CriticThe daily grind of a Brick Lane Bangladeshi is credibly brought to life in this sensitive and intelligent adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel.
11/14/07
Top CriticDepth of character, such a distinctive quality of Ali's book, is sacrificed for simpler strokes and shallower dimensions, with an undue emphasis placed by helmer Sarah Gavron and lenser Robbie Ryan on gorgeous pictures.
09/13/07
Top Critic1 - 11 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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.
More...
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