alexbond3 Review of Yasmin

Yasmin (2004)

Struggles for individual, familial and communal identity

[8/10 · 27 January 2007]

The film Yasmin centers on its eponymous lead character, a British Muslim woman of Pakistani descent in her mid-twenties who has to devise a way to balance two increasingly opposing parts of her life – her Muslim family and community, and her predominantly non-Muslim friends and place of work – in the wake of September 11, 2001. We learn early in the film that Yasmin has had an arranged marriage to a man, Faysal, who can easily be compared to the character Spike from Notting Hill in that he appears silly and stupid (although his character later gains more depth), and Yasmin refuses to acknowledge the relationship as anything more than a formality. Yasmin also struggles against her father's strict adherence to Muslim faith and customs, and her younger brother Nasir's increasing leanings towards crime and violent Muslim extremism. At the same time, we encounter the other part of Yasmin's life, her working life, in which she has several (unbeknownst to her) superficial female friends, and a close Caucasian male friend named John. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, Yasmin begins to experience discrimination from her co-workers because of her ethnicity, and goes through a conflict with her father about wanting to divorce her husband. Later, Faysal is arrested and detained by British police for alleged connections to terrorist groups, and Yasmin is temporarily jailed when she attempts to bail him out. Amid these trials, Yasmin searches for her own identity and decides to embrace her Muslim faith. She also reconciles her relationship with her father, and she accepts her marriage with Faysal. The film ends tragically, however, when it is revealed that Nasir has left home to join Muslim extremists fighting in the Middle East. In sum, Yasmin's struggle for spiritual and cultural identity mirrors the struggles of her family, her community, and Britain as a whole in the modern era.