One of the worst movies I've ever seen

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

To begin with, I do not care for women filmmakers, especially their self-congratulatory commentary and "women as victims" slant, which is why I initially found the lack of English subtitles or captions for the hearing impaired so unforgivable. English as spoken in Britain is my native language, but I could not understand the Bengali accented English in the film. As a result, I could not follow the plot and resolved to check out the book. Eventually I found the captions by accident when I switched on subtitles for the special features, and after returning to the film, they came on. The DVD box did not list captions. I rated the film a 7, as it is a very interesting and absorbing film which made made think about for a few days. No one in the film is bad or good, and you are able to sympathize with all the characters, even the elderly widowed moneylender. For me, the husband was the saddest character. His youthful dreams had come to nothing despite his education, he was passed over for the civil service and reduced to menial jobs in middle age. He had always dreamed of returning to Bangladesh as a successful man, but his failure to achieve success led to him staying on in Britain where he was not really welcome. Even his two daughters were ungrateful and alienated, perhaps because being British born they saw him as foreign. If the husband and wife had been able to communicate things might have been better, but although married and living in a tiny over-furnished flat, they seemed to live separate lives.

There's some good acting, the council estates near the street of the title are well-used and the natural tensions of life in the East End of London in the noughties are used sparingly. As a backdrop to a modern romance it's got perfectly good credentials. Yet I thought Sarah Gavron worked it all too hard trying to hammer out texture and depth as if on an anvil rather than in an editing suite. Mixed-focus and dreamy close-up shots are overused into which is inserted all manner of magic-realist daydreaming whose purpose is unclear. The story is affecting enough and should have been left - perhaps with the lovely, straightforward Bangladeshi flashbacks - to sell itself.Tannishtha Chatterjee is lovely as Nazneen, not overdoing self-pity at her lot and pacing her blossoming as romance beckons. Satish Kaushik is excellent as her husband, funny but capable of the wounded pride which locks Nazneen out. Christopher Simpson is a convincing, if generic lover. When the camera is employed to get all moody it captures the East End honestly and the costuming is predictably colourful. 4/10

Although I've never read the novel, I approached Brick Lane with the same devil may care attitude I always do for films dealing with another culture. What I got was something akin to a Southern Asian soap opera. Nazneen (the central character)had been the unwilling pawn in an arranged marriage to an older Bangladeshi man, who moved her to London's east end. What follows is several years of an unhappy marriage later, she is employed as a seamstress, and becomes involved with another man with a passion for politics. Along the way we are treated to the usual array of emotional outbursts,political leanings, and other cannon fodder that makes for a smartly photographed, but rather humdrum film that will probably be of appeal to the South West Asian community (i.e. India,Bangladesh,Sri Lanka,Pakistani).

The main female actress did a powerful job in her facial expressions. You could see the pain and anguish that she was carrying with her turn into smiles then strength. I particularly enjoyed observing the relationships between sisters of two generations: the one of the mother and her sister and the one of her two modernized daughters. The film portrays the Moslem culture as smothering the feelings/rights of women. It was interesting to see my feelings towards the husband change from unsympathetic to sympathetic. The film got poor reviews in the local newspaper, but I went ahead and saw it anyway. I'm glad that I did! The film also deals with the concept of "home" and awareness of how one defines it. The correspondence exchange between the main female character in London and her sister in Bangladesh reminded me of the correspondence exchange between sisters in "Pride and Prejudice."