My Name is Khan is
a film that comes tantalisingly close to perfection but misses out due to a
mixture of a disappointing third act over simplified view of the world.
Nevertheless it is an excellent film, telling the story of a pre and post-9/11
world through the eyes of Indian’s living in America .
Rizwan Khan (Shahrukh Khan) is a mildly autistic Muslim man
who moves to America after
the death of his mother in India .
There, he meets and falls in love with a Hindu woman Mandira (Kajol) who works
as a successful hairdresser in San
Francisco . The film is split into three very distinct
acts with the first being an often light hearted, cute and funny look at
romance, tolerance and love. Khan says that the western world views history in
two epochs; BC and AD but he would add a third, 9/11. Following 9/11 the lives
of the Indian characters, whether Sikh, Hindu or Muslim change for the worse as
racial profiling, racist attacks and xenophobia takes hold thanks to the
anti-Muslim hysteria of the post-9/11 world. There is an appalling tragedy
around the halfway mark which sets up the third act in which Khan travels America to meet
the President and tell him “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”.