BRICK LANE/LOOKS GOOD

If you to see good films, you have to support good films, like this one.

It is hard enough to get such fare into cinemas even for a few days right now and if they don't get the proper audience they deserve, you are condemned to see less and less of their like again.

Besides, "Brick Lane" is highly entertaining.

Based on the award-winning novel of the same name, its director Sarah Gavron has cleverly taken the touching essence of the story to make to emotional romantic tale.

It starts off in distant Bangladesh with an arranged marriage but quickly moves to the more familiar surroundings of London’s East End and picks up speed as stunning newcomer Tannishtha Chatterjee first tries to make a go of her dull life, then falls for a dashing local lad. Surprise, surprise.

It is a much more accurate picture of life for Britain's Muslim immigrants than you will get from a slew of newspaper cuttings, so it has intrinsic value. But cinema has to be engaging and amusing as well, and "Brick Lane" clearly understands that.

Filed November 19, 2007.