Screening Film Adaptation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This worksheet is assigned by Dr. Dilip barad sir to critically engage with the film adaptation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist , To explore postcolonial theory such as hybridity, third space, Orientalism, Re-orientalism.

 A. Pre-Watching Activities

1. Critical Reading & Reflection

Ania Loomba’s reflections on the “New American Empire” dismantle the simplistic center–margin map of globalization, showing that power now operates through a dispersed network of military, cultural, and economic influence. This network reaches into every corner of the globe, shaping lives without the direct colonial rule of earlier empires. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire similarly reframe globalization as a decentered, deterritorialized system of sovereignty. Power is not solely concentrated in the “West” but circulates through global flows of capital, media, and governance, where nation-states, corporations, and supranational institutions collaborate in maintaining dominance. This moves beyond binaries: Pakistan is not simply a periphery to America’s center—it is enmeshed in the same global capitalist system.

2. Contextual Research 

Mohsin Hamid began writing The Reluctant Fundamentalist before September 11, 2001, envisioning a story about a Pakistani man navigating life in the U.S., success in global finance, and questions of belonging. The 9/11 attacks radically altered the narrative’s trajectory. In the post-9/11 climate, suspicion toward Muslim men became institutionalized, and America’s sense of its own invulnerability shifted into a politics of fear and preemptive action. Hamid rewrote the novel to reflect this transformed world, infusing Changez’s personal story with geopolitical urgency. His minimalist dramatic-monologue structure mirrors the paranoia and lack of mutual trust in U.S.–Pakistan relations. The shift from a generic immigrant success narrative to a pointed exploration of surveillance, racial profiling, and ideological suspicion underscores how global events can reshape both personal destinies and artistic visions. Hamid’s rewrite ensures the novel is not just about one man’s disillusionment but about an entire era’s reconfiguration of identity and power.

B. While-Watching Activities

1. Character Conflicts & Themes

• Father/Son Generational Split
  Changez’s professional ambitions reflect a generational shift from poetry and cultural heritage (embodied by his father’s literary sensibilities) toward corporate efficiency and global capitalism. Symbolically, his immaculate suits and analytical speech patterns contrast with his father’s traditional dress and reflective manner. The tension is understated but underscores a cultural negotiation between rootedness and transnational aspiration.

• Changez & Erica
  Erica’s inability to fully see Changez as himself—projecting her deceased boyfriend onto him—becomes a metaphor for America’s inability to perceive Pakistan beyond its own narratives. The visual framing often positions Changez slightly blurred or shadowed in Erica’s gaze, signaling emotional and cultural estrangement.

• Profit vs. Knowledge
  The Istanbul sequence juxtaposes corporate valuations with the city’s layered history. Changez’s boardroom assessments reduce cultural heritage to market figures, while the camera lingers on ancient architecture—inviting viewers to question the commodification of knowledge and the erasure of cultural memory

2. Title Significance & Dual Fundamentalism

The title’s “fundamentalism” operates on dual registers: religious extremism and corporate fundamentalism in the market’s supremacy. The film visually parallels these through the repetition of ritualized spaces—mosques and corporate offices—both sites of disciplined, unquestioned devotion. Changez’s “reluctance” is visible in moments where he hesitates before delivering ruthless corporate verdicts, and later, when he refuses to commit to violent extremism, instead embracing a third space of cultural critique.

3. Empire Narratives

Post-9/11 paranoia is depicted in airport interrogations, FBI tailing, and hostile glances on New York streets. Yet, Mira Nair also stages moments of cross-cultural dialogue—in the Lahore café conversations, in music scenes—that resist binary hostility. Ambiguous framing (shadows, partial reflections) often suggests the viewer’s complicity in stereotyping, pushing us to question the gaze of Empire and our role as witnesses.

C. Post-Watching Activities

1. Discussion Prompts

1. Does the film truly open a space for East–West reconciliation, or do surveillance and mistrust undercut its gestures toward dialogue?

While Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist visually stages numerous moments of cultural exchange—tea shared between Changez and Bobby in Lahore, warm colour palettes during family scenes, and the inclusion of Urdu poetry—the film’s mise-en-scène is equally saturated with symbols of surveillance and latent hostility. Close-up shots of Bobby’s concealed microphone, security checks, and the ever-present armed guards puncture the possibility of full trust. The dialogue often oscillates between sincerity and veiled suspicion, showing that even seemingly open conversations are mediated by the post-9/11 security apparatus. Rather than resolving tensions, the film keeps reconciliation precarious, suggesting that under a global empire, gestures toward dialogue are constantly undercut by systemic mistrust.

2. How does the loss of the novel’s single-voice monologue affect the narrative’s ambiguity in the adaptation? Does the film’s multiple perspectives dilute or enhance the tension?

Hamid’s novel relies on the dramatic monologue, a device that forces the reader to inhabit Changez’s account without external verification, creating a fertile ambiguity where sincerity and manipulation blur. The film replaces this with cross-cutting between Changez’s perspective, Bobby’s point of view, and flashbacks, offering viewers a more conventional narrative structure. While this broadens emotional engagement—allowing us to see Erica’s mental deterioration, Jim’s mentorship, and Bobby’s covert mission—it also risks over-explaining and thus reducing the interpretive space the novel leaves open. However, the tension is not entirely diluted; it is reconfigured. Visual juxtapositions (e.g., Changez’s tender moments with Erica contrasted with scenes of FBI raids) produce a form of cinematic ambiguity where suspicion lingers not in the narrator’s words but in the editing rhythms and framing choices.

2. Reflective Journal

Watching The Reluctant Fundamentalist through the lens of postcolonial theory made me confront the subtle ways I, as a viewer, am positioned within global narratives of identity and power. Before the film, I understood post-9/11 racial profiling and Islamophobia largely as abstract political issues; the adaptation translated these into intimate, human-scale experiences—Changez’s humiliation at the airport, Erica’s inability to truly see him beyond her own grief, and the quiet erosion of trust between him and his American colleagues. These moments forced me to recognise that representation is not merely about who appears on screen, but about how gazes, silences, and narrative control are distributed.

The film shifted my perspective by making me more aware of the “double consciousness” that postcolonial subjects often navigate—constantly performing identity for the dominant gaze while trying to preserve authenticity. It also revealed how global empire operates not only through military or economic dominance but through subtle cultural mechanisms: the corporate ladder, the media’s framing of terrorism, and the romanticisation of certain forms of “acceptable” otherness.

By reflecting on my own viewing position—someone shaped by globalised media, yet also aware of postcolonial histories—I see more clearly how empathy can be compromised by the very systems that produce the stories I consume. This awareness deepens my understanding of postcolonial subjects as negotiating a “third space” (in Homi Bhabha’s sense), where resistance and assimilation are not binary choices but constantly shifting survival strategies.

Reference 

Mira Nair,  director. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Doha Film, Institute Mirabai, Films Cine Mosaic, 2013. Accessed 14 August 2025.