Indian director Mira Nair has spent the bulk of her film making career taking risks. Fairly early in her on she gave Denzel Washington one of his first romantic leads with Mississippi Masala, which featured a complex relationship between an African-American man and a Ugandan-Indian woman. Nair really rose to prominence ten years later with Monsoon Wedding, which showed that Punjabi weddings can be just as chaotic as ours here in America, maybe more so. She gave Reese Witherspoon her first crack at a period drama with Vanity Fair, then a couple of years later helped Kal Penn prove he's more than just Van Wilder's sidekick in the Indian family drama, The Namesake.
Unfortunately, 2009 wasn't such a good year for Nair. She directed Amelia, a Hilary Swank starrer that looked like pure Oscar bait, but was soundly bashed by critics and ignored by the Academy. And it made no money. Not a good combo. We haven't seen or heard much from Nair since, but it appears she wasn't exactly resting on her laurels. She's already hard at work on her next film, and has the cast essentially lined up, ready to go.
The film is The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on Mohsid Hamed's award winning 2007 novel, and it sounds like pretty topical, controversial stuff. The story centers on Pakistani man named Changez, who sees his life, attitude, and personal allegiances drastically changed by the events of 9/11. This is all framed around Changez's telling of the story to an American man while in Lahore.
Nair has never had a problem rounding up great casts for her films, and this is no different. Kate Hudson, Riz Ahmed(Four Lions), Liev Schreiber, and Kiefer Sutherland are on board. Ahmed will play Changez, while Hudson will likely play the object of his affections. No word on when this will kick off but it'll definitely be one I'll be keeping both eyes on. [THR]
