Click to read the article
Comment
04/23/09
Rate this Movie 
Brick Lane (2008)
65
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work
Reviews Counted:93
Fresh:60
Rotten:33
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Frustratingly slow-moving, but ultimately saved by Chatterjee's solid acting and Gavron's gentle patience.
Theatrical Release:Jun 20, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $1,010,010
Synopsis: Nazneen’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of seventeen,. Forced into an arranged marriage to an older man, she exchanges her Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London’s... [More]
Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, Christopher Simpson, Naeema Begum
Director: Sarah Gavron
Get This Movie
Rent DVD
Click on the "ADD" button to put this movie into your Netflix queue.
Buy DVD
Reviews for Brick Lane
Certainly touching, even heart-rending at times, and it mostly steers clear of the didacticism and sentimentality its subject matter often invites. But it never takes the full measure of its modest heroine, and makes her world a bit too small.
06/20/08
Top CriticIts flat, static quality belies the novel's richness.
07/11/08
Underwhelming.
11/16/07
Even when 9/11 is invoked the film doesn't so much suggest a melodrama of the heart and spirit as it does an explosion at a fabric store.
06/15/08
Feels as average as an ordinary TV movie.
06/19/08
[A] glossy but overly efficient drama that, like Nazneen's husband, is ultimately too ineffectual to make much of a dent.
06/20/08
Top CriticDespite the fine performances, Brick Lane comes across as a nice soap opera when it promised much more.
10/18/08
Lazily relies upon the book's prestige to get by.
06/26/08
Every conceivable choice on this film was met with the most obvious answer, and every turn comes right out of other movies.
06/07/08
Taken for what it is, Brick Lane is something entirely its own.
07/18/08
A blandly earnest coming-of-age story.
10/18/08
The kind of meaningless middlebrow sludge that passes for “quality movie-making” in some of the more conservative sectors of the British film industry
11/15/07
To hint that a heroine might have any flaws whatsoever would be just a bit too modern for this picture.
06/20/08
Top Critic[The film] hits all the clichés of romantic literary adaptation: montage, letters read aloud in voice-over, a swelling musical score.
07/04/08
Top CriticBrick Lane is lovely to look at and the performances, particularly from Chatterjee and Kaushik, are delightful.
10/18/08
Stripped of a mediating point of view, the film is just a series of pretty pictures and awkwardly connected incidents.
06/20/08
No new ground is explored, however, in this handsomely constructed film. Nazneen's story seems familiar every step of the way.
06/17/08
Fewer incendiary incidents and a red pencil applied to the script might have freed the good movie that’s buried somewhere beneath layers of unearned emotional conflict.
06/18/08
Monica Ali’s sensitive sprawling text about a Bangledeshi wife (Chatterjee) forced into an east London marriage gets a sanded-down blandification as it makes its lurch onto the big screen.
11/16/07
Latest News for Brick Lane
January 23, 2009:
A movie whose visuals are lovely to behold and lyrically awash in sensuality and desire, but sets the lives of women back at least a few centuries. 
More...
January 19, 2009:
A movie whose visuals are lovely to behold and lyrically awash in sensuality and desire, but sets the lives of women back at least a few centuries.
More...
June 19, 2008:
Critics Consensus: Get Smart Misses by That Much, Guru Gets No Love
This week at the movies, we've got wacky spies (Get Smart, starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway) and silly self-help specialists (The Love Guru starring Mike Myers and... More...
June 18, 2008:
Arranged marriage at center of cross-cultural drama set in London.
More...
RT On Current TV
What’s Hot On RT
Fresh Links
Featured
Wes Anderson on Fox
The director talks about puppetry perfection and his film, Fantastic Mr. Fox
Animated Oscar?
Hollywood.com ponders whether or not an animated film could win Best Picture.
TIME's Holiday Movie Preview
Richard Corliss previews the season's best offerings and hottest tickets.
Scenic Routes
The AV Club's Mike D'Angelo airs his beefs with Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter
Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!
IGN RSS Feeds