On Monday, Oct. 6, Reel Alternatives presents Brick Lane, the adaptation of Monica Ali’s celebrated British novel that is as insightful and moving as the story was on the page.

Screened to popular acclaim at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, director Sarah Gavron’s film makes the most of everything Ali’s novel gives her.

In the film’s breathtaking opening scenes, Nazneen recalls her childhood in Bangladesh.

Her village had an idyllic beauty, but its oppressive social landscape sent her mother to seek her own death. Nazneen is married off to a man she has never met and flown to London’s Brick Lane neighbourhood to meet her new husband.

Although she is told to be grateful for having married an educated man, she still finds her husband a callous stranger. Cursed with a need to inflate his own importance, he ignores his wife’s needs and presents the humiliations he experiences while trying to find work as evidence of his superior qualities.

When he finally lands a menial job, he announces, “I have become the driver of Kempton Cars!” as though he’d been appointed to the House of Lords.

It’s hopeless: her husband rattles on about dead philosophers while all she wants is a nice sari, some meaning in life and a man to see her truly for who she is. All this will come, but at a price.

When Nazneen pushes to start her own sewing business in their home, it signals the beginning of her autonomy. And when the attractive young Karim walks in, it marks the beginning of danger. The seduction shared between Nazneen and Karim is as cautious as it is risky.

These intimate moments are balanced against the increasingly tense atmosphere, as the tightly knit Muslim community reacts to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath.

Brick Lane is sponsored by Trillium Jazz and will be presented at the Capitol Twin Cinema at 7 p.m. on Monday, October 6th.  Advance tickets are $7 at Muskoka Country Furniture and Gifts on Main Street, or $8 at the door.

For more information visit reelalternativeshuntsville.ca.