Very well executed

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Please don't spend money on this.

Beautiful, moving film.

I just saw this incredible ensemble movie - I was most struck by the amazing ensemble acting by the entire cast, mostly unknown to me (Archie Panjabi is an emmy winner for her role on "The Good Wife", and I have seen Linda Bassett in a few movies). I absolutely hated the father - he reminded me of my late father, who was also a bully who was enraged by his lack of ability to control others completely - Om Puri gives a ferocious performance - I would be curious to know what the actor felt about his part, did he see him (as I do) as a villain or did he see him as "right"? I found Linda Bassett's role a bit infuriating: those women who stay with their abusive disgusting husbands no matter what. I loved how rebellious the kids were, yet they stayed stuck under this tyrant's thumb. But they could escape into British culture, the neighborhood, school, music, culture that was not Pakistani. The gay son was certainly stereotypical but I still found it daring - it's rare to see a happy gay couple (who also appear to be "married") in movies from before 2000. Meena's dance is wonderful and fun. Damien O'Donnell's direction makes me wish he could make more movies (I've also loved "Rory O'Shea Was Here", which was originally titled "Inside I'm Dancing", but his other few films don't seem to have made it over here) - his direction is incredibly self-assured and brilliant, it was his feature film debut (he had made short films and commercials previously). I especially loved the feel of the film, the production design, the street - interestingly, it was filmed at Ealing Studios, 40 years after the last of the Ealing films were produced there. While this film can get my blood boiling - I wished somebody would run the father over with a car or do anything to get him to STOP his bullying disgusting behavior. (Why is he married to her? It's a real mystery. If he's so "Pakistani", why isn't he married to a Pakistani woman?) But that's what's so great about this movie: it can be simultaneously infuriating AND fascinating! I absolutely loved this movie!!!

At 90 minutes, East is East doesn't outstay it's welcome. The film won the 1999 BAFTA for Best British Film and began life as a play at London's Royal Court two years earlier. It's a comedy drama set in Salford in the very grim North of England 1971. And if you're in a working class Anglo-Pakistani household it's doubly so. The Khans live in a back-to-back terrace house with an outdoor toilet (the production design here is terrific, it really does make the past a foreign country)and run the family chip shop.The film recalls another English movie from 1969 called 'Spring and Port Wine' - the northern working class family, the children wanting to break away from the grip of a tyrannical father. The father is George, played splendidly by Om Puri, the Pakistani father of a family who he doesn't realise are English: they're sausage and bacon eating English, with sons who booze and go to discos and one of whom has a white girlfriend and responds to the prospect of an arranged marriage with "I'm not marrying a f**king Paki".The whole cast is excellent - especially Archie Punjabi and Jimi Mistry - with Linda Bassett quite outstanding as Ella, George's English wife. She looks as if she's had 7 children. She's beaten up by George at one point, but remains devoted to her family throughout. She's a gem.

Here we have interesting characters, great acting, accomplished cinematography, colourful locations, relevant issues, and so on, and so forth. All the ingredients for a fast-paced multiculti culture clash comedy are on the table. But I still got to resent this movie. The reason is that the makers decided to make this fluffy comedy also relevant, edgy and deep. That's like taking a mousse au chocolat and loading it with fibers and vitamins. In this case, the story starts out with an inept and somewhat backwards, but likable Pakistani dad who turns into Bin Ladin's evil, wife-beating, uglier brother halfway through the film. He's like a stereotype straight out of Enoch Powell's book. All this is decorated with plot holes the size of BP's Gulf-of- Mexico oil leak. For example, the parents "discover" that their ten-year-something son hasn't been circumcised. How could they fail to notice -- had they adopted him earlier that same day? And sailing under the flag of political correctness, the movie manages to round up almost every distasteful movie cliché in the book: kids with glasses are nerds. It's OK to poke fun at fat chicks. Bullying is fun. Being sexually assaulted by a large dog is hilarious. Blonde chicks who wear makeup are white-trash slags, and it's OK to treat them like pieces of furniture. Homosexuals run enormous hat stores out of Eccles (OK, that one was new to me, but it's still not funny).Give me comedy. Give me drama. But if you want to give me both at the same time, you better know your cinematic onions.

Let me start by saying that this film is terribly mislabeled as a comedy when it is, in fact, very much a drama. Yes, there are times when I laughed out loud but I chose this film because I was in the mood for a comedy. Had I been in the mood for a drama I am sure I would have scored the film much higher."East is East" is the story of a Pakistani father, George Khan, his Caucasian British wife, Ella, and their seven children. The acting is superb, the writing is excellent, and the soundtrack is wonderful. Having said all of that, I do have a few issues with the film. (SPOILER ALERT) First, the oldest son, Nazir, just kind of disappears for a while without any explanation. Did he run away? Did he kill himself? Where did he go? We find out about halfway through the film when his father pronounces that he is dead. This leaves the viewer wondering how one could have missed such an important event, but a few minutes later we realize that Nazir is only dead to him. In fact, we discover, albeit something I guessed in the first ten minutes of the film, that Nazir is gay. This is all the more reason for his Pakistani father to call him dead.My second issue with the film is that I really liked all of the characters, even the strict and traditional George. Ella is charming the way she can talk him down from almost any argument with typical British humor mixed with a few choice swear words. The kids adore their mother and, although they disagree with him, they love their father. This led me to believe that the film was going to be a "Dad is a strict traditional man, kids and mom are not, so this is the story of how everyone changes Dad." (SPOILER ALERT) Unfortunately, the story became, "Dad is an abusive and closed-minded bastard and starts beating on anyone, including mom, who dares to defy him." I just don't understand why the story had to change this way. I left the film wishing Ella would leave her bastard husband and raise her kids on her own. We went from the tenderness of how Ella would ask George if he would like some tea and he would reply, "just half a cup", to George calling her a "bloody b****" and giving her a black eye. Why? My final issue with the film is the ending. (SPOILER ALERT) We are left with nothing changed in the family other than the children discovering that their father isn't just strict, he is cruel. I just feel incomplete after watching "East is East". I get that the Pakistani culture is very different from British culture and that, particularly in the 1970's, the west was not very open to accepting this new group of immigrants. What else came of this story? I don't feel warm and fuzzy toward this culture if George is a shining of example of how the men truly behave. Why did he choose to marry outside of his own culture if he hates it so much? Why raise children with a mother who is not Muslim and not from Pakistan if you are just going to teach them that it is unacceptable to marry anyone who is not from Pakistan? I feel like I got a glimpse of a very dysfunctional family who will never see a happy ending and that is just not why I choose to watch films. I watch films to learn something new, or to laugh, to perhaps cry a little, but overall, I watch films to have a few hours of enjoyment. I watch films to forget my own problems for a while. After watching this, I just feel like I would have been better off calling my own family back home and hearing about their issues and problems.