Review by Robert Hull
Stars Om Puri, Aquib Khan, Linda Bassett, Ila Arun, Emil Marwa, Nadim Sawalha, Raj Bhansali, Vijay Raaz, Robert Pugh, Jimi Mistry, Vanessa Hehir, Sheeba Chaddha
Written by Ayub Khan-Din
Certification UK TBC | US TBC
Runtime TBC
Directed by Andy DeEmmony
Sequels aren’t meant to be this way are they? It’s not that West is West – the follow-up to East is East – has reinvented the cinematic wheel, it’s just that it’s been over 10 years since the original. Ten years … and let’s be honest, no real euphoria for a return. Still that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy what’s on offer. And enjoy is the order of the day in what is a shamelessly populist coming-of-age drama shot through with humour and bittersweet emotion.
George ‘Genghis’ Khan (Om Puri) remains a domineering patriarch but it’s five years on from the original film and his Salford household in 1976 is now only home to him, his wife Ella (Mrs Khan no 2, played by Linda Bassett) and 13-year-old son Sajid (Aquib Khan).
Sajid feels isolated and struggles within his father’s tyrannical world and Pakistani traditions, while at school he is being racially bullied. Despite the ministrations of a hopeless but well-intentioned headmaster, Mr Jordan (Robert Pugh), Sajid plays truant and tries his hand at shoplifting. What’s worse: he gets caught.
All of which serves to convince George that he is running out of time, and chances, to turn Sajid into a good Muslim boy. So, he persuades a reluctant Ella of the need to take Sajid to see his family in the Punjab. The fact this also means returning to Basheera (Mrs Khan no 1, played by Ila Arun) and the family George walked out on 30 years earlier leaves Ella understandably anxious.
The setup may not necessarily point to fun and hijinks but Sajid’s dilemma (“I’m English, sir,” he tells his headmaster when asked why he doesn’t speak Urdu) makes for a convincing fish-out-of-water tale. But the film’s slight of hand comes while you’re experiencing Sajid’s resentment of his Pakistani kin – because the real struggle is about George’s realisation of his shortcomings as a husband and father, as well as of where he truly feels at home.
Although much of the characterisation is broad it’s also pleasantly familiar – notably the father figure/guru of Pir Naseem played with a glint in his eye by Nadim Sawalha. The humour can lack subtlety but there are also touching and acutely human sequences such as when Ella and George examine their relationship.
While screenwriter Ayub Khan-Din has written of the autobiographical nature of the film, what really makes West is West authentic and comfortable viewing is the universal themes of identity and of the struggle to find your place in world – and perhaps more pertinently in the fact that ‘growing up’ can be difficult no matter what age you are.