Early on, "Brick Lane" had me worried.

Set in the Bangladeshi immigrant community of London's East End known as Banglatown, it's the story of Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee), a young woman who seeks refuge from an unhappy arranged marriage in the arms of Karim (Christopher Simpson), a man much younger -- and hunkier -- than her portly middle-aged husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik). Uh-oh, I thought. Is this going to turn into "How Nazneen Got Her Groove Back"?

I have good news: "Brick Lane" is not that movie.

In the first place, Karim's no boy toy. Increasingly radicalized by the bigotry he and his Muslim friends experience after 9/11, Nazneen's lover embarks on a leftward political journey that lends the film an unexpected, topical edge. But this is ultimately Nazneen's story, not his. Karim is little more than a catalyst for changes that will take place within Nazneen's heart.

What's more, her marriage to Chanu turns out not to be the loveless prison the movie initially leads us to believe. Things are more complicated than that, much to the film's credit. Based on a novel by Monica Ali, "Brick Lane" is a grown-up movie. It recognizes that there are different kinds of love and that some of them don't involve happily-ever-afters.

Now for the bad news.

Even as "Brick Lane" manages to sidestep one formula, it falls prey to another. No, its message isn't that everyone gets a second crack at true love. Nor is it that love was there all along and Nazneen just didn't know it (though there's a whiff of that).

Rather, it's this: Your happiness isn't something you look for in others, but in yourself. Which isn't, in the final analysis, any less of a cliche -- just a different one.

-- Michael O'Sullivan (Aug. 1, 2008)

Contains scenes of nongraphic lovemaking and a rude word.