Minimum creates a sense of nostalgia in a raw form

As part of the UK Asian Film Festival held on Thursday 2nd May a stunning debut opening at the BMI London Imax Cinema in Waterloo opened a big screening of the film ‘Minimum’. The evening commenced with a banging Bollywood dance performance and red-carpet arrival from the film’s cast and production team. Indian actress Saba Azad who plays French tutor Laurie, and Belgian film Writer, Director and Producer Rumana Molla who created the movie from a female immigrant perspective take on the lead role of Fauzia who was set up with a catfished arranged marriage not knowing this fact and travels to Belgium for the first time in her life to start a life with her newly-wed husband. 

She finds herself trapped inside her mother- in law Rukhsana (Geetanjali Kulkarni) insidious intentions and discovers the shocking reality of her husband who is mentally impaired and disguised at the time of marriage. She slowly finds comfort and friendship with her French teacher Laurie, who not only teaches her the language but also empowers her to stop being emotionally and financially dependent on Rukhsana. 

She finds the courage and strength to leave the marital home and find a job in a local grocery store owned by Sukhdeep Singh (Naseerudin Shah). The film takes an unusual turn at the end instead of leaving Ali, Fauzia finds the compassion to understand her husband and become friends with him through a mutual interest of playing online games. The thing that compelled me to stay engaged throughout the film was the simplicity and realism of it all.

The French persona of Sabah Azad is playfully captivating, whilst Namit Das who plays husband Ali as mentally impaired were both challenging roles to take on performed impressively. Minimum didn’t hold my bare minimum attention. Infact it had a maximum effect of drawing the audience in throughout the film and left everyone with a sense of nostalgia just by the sheer simplicity of it all. The empathy shown by Fauzia as she recognises Ali’s cry to get away from his mother too creates a unique bond even after being  tricked into marriage by her family shows the tremendous virtue of Fauzia’s character of courage and compassion.

Sabah tells BMM” She loves working with Rumana and will certainly be working in the future on more projects like this”. A film created with flair, perfect timing and beautiful thought. ‘The Bare Minimum, which resulted in maximum impact’.