In the prologue for Brick Lane, young Nazneen and her beloved sister Hasina (Zafreen) play together during what will be their last carefree moments on this earth. Their mother looks at them sullenly, and through a series of close-ups and cuts, the film practically screams out: Mom's going to commit suicide! She does, and the film expects us to be surprised and shocked. Nazneen is shipped off to London for an arranged marriage, and by the time the credits finish, Nazneen has been there long enough to raise two 'tween girls.

The time jump is a bit jarring, and it's done with the same carelessness as the prologue. But soon we meet Nazneen's husband, a fat, cartoonish lout, Chanu (Satish Kaushik), who is apparently educated and well-read but who lacks the most basic elements of common sense. When he mentions the promotion that he's sure to get at his job, we know it's all over for him. Nobody ever gets a promotion in the first reel of a movie, but Chanu doesn't know that, nor do the filmmakers. It's as infuriating as watching teenagers in horror films split up to search the woods.

The much-loved 2003 English novel Brick Lane, about a Bangladeshi woman who travels to London to take part in an arranged marriage to an older man, has now been realized as a depressing, static drama that will have heads lolling backwards and eyes drooping wherever it plays. From all the protests that have been mounted over this project -- some natives of the predominantly Muslim Brick Lane neighborhood in London found the book to be culturally insulting and wanted nothing to do with the adaption -- most observers expected the resulting film to be at the very least divisive and electric, pulling no punches in its frank exploration of racial and cultural tensions in modern London. Instead, what we've been given is a quasi-literal staging of the book's many family drama scuffles, unevenly-paced and amateurishly directed by helmer Sarah Gavron. There are some nice exchanges here and there, but not nearly enough to make up for the endless scenes of melodramatic bickering; the passions burn on a low-flame but never come close to catching fire.

Starring is Bollywood actress Tannishtha Chatterjee as Nazneen, a poor Bangladeshi girl whose world and options are significantly narrowed when her mother unexpectedly dies. Without the luxury of being able to choose her own way forward in life, Nazneen is immediately packed off to Brick Lane, where a rotund, boisterous man named Chanu, played by Satish Kaushik, is working menial jobs but deluding himself into thinking that he's some kind of enterprising entrepreneur. When he's laid off, it's an opportunity for upward mobility in the workforce. When he gets a third-rate job, it's anything but. He's a deluded optimist, nourishing a blind spot that will protect him from seeing his own failures. As played by Kaushik, Chanu is by far the most compelling character in the film, but there's very little room for the character to move in the story, and once we've seen his schtick in the first thirty minutes or so, we've pretty much seen it all. Nazneen and Chanu are so mismatched as a couple that they don't even provide for the viewer any interesting clashes.

It was just before noon on Labor Day, the last day of the Telluride Film Festival, and heaps of passholders were crowded into the Town Park in Telluride for the big passholder Labor Day Picnic, the second of two big feed parties the Telluride Film Festival throws for its passholders. Storm clouds hovered threateningly, but they were nowhere near as threatening as the clouds hovering on the brows of some of the eight women called there to put on a panel for the fest attendees. The panel topic: "Is There a Woman Behind Every Good Movie? The Gender Shift in the Film World."

An hour or so earlier, panelist Tamara Jenkins, director of The Savages, which sneaked at the fest, had gone off on a tangent during her Conversation with Juno director Jason Reitman over at the Courthouse about this very panel, and how being asked to participate in panels on women in film always makes her feel like she's on the "special olympics" panel. "It's either, oh, look, you made a FILM! Isn't that cute," she drolled in a cutsie "let's talk to the baby like it's an idiot" voice or, "You GO, girl" as she thrust her fists in the air. She laughed about it, but the annoyance wasn't a put on. She joked about all the implications of being labeled a "female filmmaker" rather than just a filmmaker ("Tell us, Tamara -- what's it like to direct a film ... while wearing a BRA?") but she made it clear that given her druthers, she'd far prefer that her gender wasn't an issue at all.

A while later, Jenkins was milling about in front of the platform schmoozing with the seven other female filmmakers who had been persuaded to participate in the panel: Diablo Cody (screenwriter of Juno); Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane); Alexandra Sun (producer of Blind Mountain); Laura Linney (The Savages); Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding), Jyll Johnstone (director, Hats Off!) and Sarah Gavron (director, Brick Lane). This formidable group of women got up on the platform, and then we found that this panel about women filmmakers is being led by ... a man. Now, not that I have anything against men (heck, I like some of them quite a lot), but I wasn't the only one who found this a little odd. With all the women writing about film, teaching about film, making films, even staffing this festival, they couldn't find a woman to host this panel? I know Anne Thompson skipped out on Telluride this year, but surely they could have found someone. Anyone? Anyone?

BAFTA-winning director Sarah Gavron has her first feature film coming up -- a drama called Brick Lane. The Hollywood Reporter has now posted that Sony Picture Classics has picked up both the North and South American rights to the film, set to be released in the UK this November. The movie is based on Monica Ali's 2003 novel, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003. The Book, and film, have been embroiled in controversy with the Bangladeshi community, as they say the works paint them in a negative light. There's even a "Campaign Against Monica Ali's Film Brick Lane," which Germaine Greer allegedly supports.

Brick Lane is about a Bangladeshi woman named Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee), who accepts her parents' arranged marriage to Chanu (Satish Kaushik), who is twice her age and lives in England. The story follows her life -- how it contrasts with her free-spirited sister Hasina (Zafreen), the children Nazneen has, how she tries to bend fate to her will rather than change it and the affair she has with Karim (Christopher Simpson), a Muslim radical. (Interesting note: obviously, "Simpson" isn't very Muslim -- the actor often plays Anglo-Indian roles, but his background is Irish, Greek and Rwandan.) It'll be interesting to see the film, both how well it is adapted (by the pens of Abi Morgan and Laura Jones) and the response to it -- once it expands well beyond the small community currently opposing it.