My Son the Fanatic (film)
1997 film by Udayan Prasad
My Son the Fanatic is a 1997 British comedy drama film directed by Udayan Prasad. It was written by Hanif Kureishi as an adaptation of his short story My Son the Fanatic.
Plot
The plot of the film revolves around Parvez, a Pakistani-born taxi driver and a tolerant, secular Muslim. His life takes an unexpected dark turn when his son Farid converts to fundamentalist Islam, leading to a family breakdown and social conflict.
According to Rachel Donadio, The New York Times writer and editor, the film's theme is encapsulated in a pivotal scene:
One of the most revealing insights into Britain's recent social history comes early in My Son the Fanatic, Hanif Kureishi's tender and darkly prescient 1997 film. It’s morning in an unnamed city in northern England, and Parvez, a secular Pakistani immigrant taxi driver brilliantly portrayed by Om Puri, watches Farid, his increasingly devout college-age son, sell his electric guitar. "Where is that going?" Parvez asks Farid as the buyer drives off. "You used to love making a terrible noise with these instruments!" Farid, played by Akbar Kurtha, looks at his father with irritation. "You always said there were more important things than 'Stairway to Heaven'" he says impatiently in his thick northern English accent. "You couldn't have been more right".
The public source identifies “My Son the Fanatic (film)” as 1997 film by Udayan Prasad. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fanatic, film and Udayan.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3319890. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “My Son the Fanatic (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.