Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I went to the local multiplex yesterday noon to take in the new Shah Rukh Khan movie My Name is Khan, and I considered that two hours and forty-some minutes well-spent on my sabbath day . . . even though I cried a lot more than I expected (and more than I usually prefer to do during a movie).

If you go to see this in a multiplex that's not accustomed to showing Bollywood films every week, be warned by my experience at the Regal Hollywood 27 in Nashville: a) there were no previews, so if I'd counted on that 15-20 minutes of previews that usually delay the advertised start time of a movie I would've missed quite a bit of the film (fortunately, I'd been afraid of crowds, so I'd come plenty early for once); and b) when the "Intermission" sign flashed on the screen, we went right on to the next scene in the movie (so don't plan on getting that bathroom break midway through the film!).

The major performances were stellar -- especially Shah Rukh Khan as the mildly autistic Everyman hero Rizvan Khan (an Indian Muslim immigrant living in the San Francisco area) and Kajol as Mandira, the divorced Hindu working mother who becomes his beloved wife.

There were no big musical production numbers of the kind we often expect in a 'Bollywood' film (just some family and friends dancing at Rizvan's wedding, and five or so songs playing on the soundtrack to express the emotions Rizvan could not at key points in the story. But that felt entirely appropriate given the serious nature of much of the film, not to mention how intimate it often felt (right after the start of the film we're told that Rizvan's Asperger's Syndrome allows him to express in writing the feelings he's unable to express in person, so a good bit of the film is his narration as he writes an account of where he's been, what he's felt, and what he hopes for the future in the form of unsent letters to his wife).

The only heart-string tugging movement in the film that felt the slightest bit contrived or threw me out of the story for even a second was when little Joel started to sing, at the conclusion of Rizvan's moving speech at the memorial service for those killed in the Iraq war in a little church in rural Georgia -- that just felt a little too staged to me, a little too much like a calculated plot point, rather than the natural emotional response of a child to another human in pain. But that was the only time when I felt that sense of artificiality. The rest of the time, I was totally buying into both the laugh-worthy moments and the grief-filled moments (which often came hand-in-hand).

In conclusion, I strongly recommend seeing My Name is Khan at a multiplex near you, if you get the chance. Yes, you'll cry a lot -- but it'll be worth it!