Oh, great - it’s another movie about a mother from the U.K. trying to cope with a bunch of kids.  Hot on the heels of Agnes Browne and Angela’s Ashes comes East is East, an award-winning play-turned-film about a family that pisses in pots and bathes in a tiny tin basin.  But unlike these other films, East actually features a strong paternal figure – a Pakistani man intent on raising his kids under the strict tenets of the Muslim religion.

George Khan (Om Puri, My Son the Fanatic) left Pakistan and his first wife in the ‘40s and has been happily married to Brit wife Ella (Linda Bassett, Oscar & Lucinda) for twenty-five years.  The Khans own a fish-and-chips shop, and their seven children - six boys and a girl, who range in age from twelve to adult - are at a point in their lives where rebellion is to be expected.  But these youths have more to revolt against than your average teens experimenting in the thriving Manchester counterculture scene of 1971.  The kids try to shun Pop’s religion (they call him “Genghis”) and have to be physically herded into a van that drives them to private religious studies.

As the film opens, the oldest Khan son Nazir (Ian Aspinal) makes like Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride and bolts out of the ceremony for his arranged marriage.  Inspired by the growing tension between his native country and India, as well as a subplot involving a fascist politician preaching racial purity as a major platform of his campaign, George forges ahead and tries to set up surprise weddings for his next two sons, Tariq (Jimi Mistry) and Abdul (Raji James).  Things in the Khan household start to boil over as Ella is no longer able to tow the fine line between devotion to her husband and the natural instinct to protect her kids.

While this description may not sound like a load of laughs, East is downright hysterical.  The clash between different cultures is very effectively portrayed in the screenplay, which Ayub Khan-Din adapted from his own smash-hit play (for you indie film buffs, he played Sammy in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid).  People may take offense to the domestic violence that occurs in the film, especially when those incidents are sandwiched between comedic scenes.  And some people may think that the film is filled with horrible racial stereotypes about Pakistanis.  A neighbor mutters that the Khans look like “a pick-a-ninny picnic,” and at one point, Tariq shouts, “I don’t want to marry a Paki!”  Well, he doesn’t, and I wouldn’t if I were him, either.

East was nominated for a handful of British Academy Awards, as well as running away with top honors from the London Critics Circle.  The acting within the dysfunctional family is as good as I’ve seen, and most of the young actors have little or no acting experience (some may be familiar to fans of British soap operas).  And Puri is fantastic as the overbearing father that calls his wife “missus” and all of his kids “bastard.

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