The Fundamentals of watching The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Our Reluctant star, receiving tutelage from his boss/mentor Kiefer Sutherland

A movie based on a very good book, I've heard, The Reluctant Fundamentalist charters into similar territories that the series Homeland does.  What makes a person so loyal and devoted to a team, suddenly turn to play for the other side?

I find this basis for a story lures me in every time.  Why did Mathilde Carre go from French Resistance femme fatale to German double agent?  More recently, why did the Australian-Israeli Ben Zygier join Mossad and then pass information to Hezbollah?  Why did the Malaysian immigrant to Australia end up joining an equally disparate community in Indigenous Australia, instead of just returning home?

The Reluctant Fundamentalist follows a young man, Changez (Riz Ahmed), who was born in Pakistan and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 18 and then studied at a prestigious university and made a success (relative term) of himself by entering a high flying Wall Street job and getting a spunky artsy girlfriend.

Riz Ahmed grows a beard, shock, horror.

 He thinks he has it all but quite a few shitty things happen and his view of the world gets flipped around.  He ends up moving back to Pakistan and it is here that we meet him in the current day, getting interrogated by a C.I.A. operative.  He asks the C.I.A. fella to listen to his entire story before he casts judgement, and this series of recollections forms the basis of the film.

I won't reveal any more because it drives me insane when people spoil plots and I'm really interested in the picture.  I will however, reveal what I think of it.  I found the concept thrilling and wanted to delve deeply into the psyche of this man.  The movie didn't disappoint, but I left feeling I wanted to know this man more.  Maybe it was just too much to squeeze into a single film.

I came to understand why people do jump ship and work for the other side.  We are always influenced by our surroundings, it is dynamic and whoever says they are loyal just haven't been enticed or dissuaded about the other team.  I think I have always known that, but this film reaffirmed it.  No one is static in life.