Liev Schreiber in The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Oscar Worthy

Live Schreiber’s authentic and riveting portrayal as Bobby in The Reluctant Fundamentalist should garner serious attention for best supporting actor come Oscar time.

Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist uses as its principle narrative mechanism a teahouse meeting between Changez (Riz Ahmed) and Bobby (Liev Schreiber). Innocently at first, Schreiber’sBobby is a journalist looking for a story about Changez Khan’s kidnapped associate at Lahore University. And he gets one. Changez is a suspected terrorist cell collaborator and wants only to tell the story as it were ‘from the beginning’. Nair then propels us on a series of flashbacks with each cut back to the teahouse’s “we need to talk” conversation revealing that much more about Bobby. Schreiber’s character reluctantly comes clean as a CIA operative. Schreiber’s performance, particularly in retrospect, masterfully captures the transformation from journalist to operative, from sympathizer to a nuanced ‘ugly American’.  While Riz Ahmed’s performance carries the film’s flashbacks – he’s virtually in every frame – it is Schreiber’s sweaty and threatening duality in conversation with Ahmed’s Changez that provides the film with its dramatic spine.

Liev Schreiber costars with Kiefer Sutherland, Kate Hudson and Riz Ahmed in this political thriller that is based on Mohsin Hamid’s international best-selling novel. The Reluctant Fundamentalistopened the 69^th Venice Film Festival comes to TIFF next for its North American Premiere.

Kate Hudson, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Why being blonde had to go.

Kate Hudson stars as a dark haired Erica, Changez’s (Riz Ahmed) beautiful NY girlfriend, in the political thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist. She attended the Opening premiere at the 69^th Venice International Film Festival looking very beautiful and blonde. Director Mira Nair says Kate is like a sister and she fell in love with her for the role.  Nair did not want Kate to be a stereotypical blonde for this role. The blonde hair would immediately make her a more identifiable romantic heroine, says Nair and instead Nair wanted to have the character of Erica something to discover. Kate Hudson portrayed the character with strength and conviction

Hudson says her character Erica is quite and very internalized.  She suffered a great personal tragedy. Her journey is to discover that she can love again and she finds this in her relationship with this lovely young man Changez (Riz Ahmed). Erica comes from a completely different world than Changez and she rebels against it. She carries this veil of sadness.

Kate Hudson:

“The intimacy of this film allows everyone in the film to discover their own truth. It is their own personal journey.”