No laughing matter | 10 April 2010

The Infidel
15, Nationwide

I wish, wish, wish, wish, wish I had liked The Infidel better. I wanted to like it. I longed to like it. And I did think it would be a hoot. It’s written by David Baddiel, a thoughtful, clever and witty writer (usually). It stars Omid Djalili, who has a lovely, big, funny face and is always an engaging physical presence. The premise is neat and brave and topical: it’s about a Muslim who discovers he is adopted and was actually born Jewish. It sounded right up my street, as I do like to laugh at religion. Some days, I am so busy laughing at religion I don’t even have time to tie my own shoelaces, which is why I trip up a lot. But? It’s not very funny and, part-way through, it’s almost as if it tires of itself, and just collapses clumsily into a heap of tiresome clichés. It even ends with a tear-jerker of a speech about how God made us all the same underneath which, aside from anything else, is patently untrue. I, for example, have a famously ravishing spleen. My kidneys are ordinary enough, but my spleen? Gorgeous!

So, what do we have here exactly? Here, we have Mr Djalili playing Mahmud, a Londoner who owns a minicab firm, and tries to be a good Muslim although not in any fanatical way. He has a lovely wife (Archie Panjabi, somewhat underused, as she has only ever to look perplexed), a little daughter and a son who is hoping to marry the stepdaughter of an Islamic radical, who doesn’t seem that radical, but as one of his supporters has a hook for a hand that clinches it, I suppose. Anyway, Mahmud is clearing out his parents’ house on the death of his mother when he stumbles across his adoption certificate and discovers he was born Solly Shimshillewitz.