The trailer for Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist looks like an intriguing glimpse at our post-9/11 world

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Sometimes all it takes is a recognizable actor to get a movie seen that would otherwise be avoided. I have a feeling that the cast of THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST will get a lot of people to see a movie with an interesting perspective. Kate Hudson, Liev Schrieber, and Kiefer Sutherland are big enough stars for people to check out Mira Nair‘s latest. From the looks of this trailer, the movie seems like it would be worth checking out.

Nair is the director of films such as AMELIA, VANITY FAIR, and THE NAMESAKE, but she is no stranger to tackling subject matter involving her native India (KAMA SUTRA, MISSISSIPPI MASALA). THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST is her first foray into the political realm of post-9/11 ethnic bias encountered by Muslims around the world. What could have turned into a movie about racism turning a person into a stereotype instead becomes much more than that.

Plot: In 2010, as student demonstrations rage in Lahore, a young Pakistani professor Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed) is interviewed by American journalist Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber). Princeton-educated Changez tells Lincoln of his past as a brilliant business analyst on Wall Street. He talks of the glittering future that lay before him, his mentor, Jim Cross (Kiefer Sutherland), and the beautiful and sophisticated Erica (Kate Hudson), with whom he was set to share that future.

At first I was skeptical of the trailer but I watched it a second time and became intrigued. This movie looks to be a dramatic exploration of how skin color affected people of every status. This movie looks unsettling, to say the least, and hopefully treats the subject matter respectfully.

THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST opens on April 26, 2013.