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Verdict: A welcome reality, thanks to the characters.

Details: Om Puri, Rachel Griffiths and Stellan Skarsgard. Rated R for language, nudity and violence. 1 hour, 21 minutes.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for My Son The Fanatic

Review: Not everyone will enjoy "My Son the Fanatic."

It is dark. It is an art film. And the subject matter concerns the relationship between a Pakistani cab driver and an English prostitute.

But the film is worth trying. It is a complex, fascinating look at what happens when vastly different cultures and social strata collide.

Hanif Kureishi, who wrote the fresh, funny "My Beautiful Laundrette," adapted "My Son the Fanatic" for the screen from his novel. Like "Laundrette" in 1985, this film examines how Pakistanis adapt to Western culture. The results are sometimes amusing, sometimes frightening.

Parvez (Om Puri) has driven a cab in Northern England for 25 years. It's not a particularly exciting job, but he does it to support his wife, Minoo (Gopi Desai), and teen-age son, Farid (Akbar Kurtha).

He's not nearly as successful as his childhood friend, Fizzy, who owns a trendy restaurant and nightclub. This is a point Minoo makes repeatedly to Parvez, even as she rubs his feet after 14 hours on the job.

Minoo is demanding and aloof, and she incessantly criticizes Parvez. When Parvez tries to find his son an English bride of high social standing, Farid rejects his efforts in favor of friends of his own culture.

Parvez withdraws from his family and finds an unusual soulmate in Bettina (Rachel Griffiths in a blond wig), a prostitute he drives from job to job. After both are done with work, they take long walks at dawn and talk in ways he and his wife never do.

Their friendship slowly, tenderly turns into love. That's where the trouble begins.

Parvez, in his desire to become Anglicized, falls deep into the seedy side of English society with Bettina and a group of prostitutes, led by a brash, coke-snorting German businessman (Stellan Skarsgard).

Farid rebels against his father's new lifestyle and becomes the "fanatic" of the film's title. He follows fundamentalist Islamic tenets until they drive him to violence in some of the movie's most disturbing scenes.

"Our cultures--they cannot be mixed!" Farid shouts at his father one night over dinner.

In tackling the racial conflicts the characters face, the film doesn't preach, and that makes its message stronger. Kureishi lets the situations reveal themselves, and allows us to judge for ourselves who's right and who's wrong.

As Parvez, Puri gives a thought-provoking, multilayered performance. He has compassion and love for his son, even as Farid walks out of his life for good. Despite the compromising situations Parvez gets into, we cheer for him to succeed and find happiness, even with a prostitute.

Griffiths shows tenderness and warmth as Bettina, a woman whose lifestyle should have squelched such emotions long ago. The love scenes between Bettina and Parvez are sensuous and intimate. He is not a traditionally attractive man, and he's at least 20 years older than Bettina, but she finds a beauty in him that is stirring.

Skarsgard is hard to watch because his character is so obnoxious, and yet you cannot turn your eyes away. He is completely unpredictable and injects life into Parvez's quiet, dreary existence.

Udayan Prasad's edgy direction and disjointed imagery add to the film's tension. The cab scenes shift from the rearview mirror, to a rainy windshield with wipers whipping across it, to fleeting shots of hookers and neon lights as the cab cruises past them.

"My Son the Fanatic" is derivative at times. A scene in which a john paws Bettina in the back of Parvez's cab is straight out of "Taxi Driver." The character of a prostitute who can be redeemed is in no way original.

But we care about the characters because they are capable of kindness and anger, loyalty and prejudice at the same time. Through them, the film presents a welcome reality--human beings are flawed and contradictory.

— Christy Lemire, Associated Press

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