Review of My Name Is Khan (2010) by Jiana W — 08 Jun 2011

"My Name Is Khan" is very sweet at times, cute, and heartbreaking. Khan has Asperger's, a form of autism. The film jumps back and forth between the past and present and is narrated by Khan as he can only do in writing because his condition doesn't really allow him to express his emotions verbally.

After the death of his mother he moves to San Francisco where his estranged brother lives with his wife. His brother gives him a job selling beauty products, and this job allows him to meet a gorgeous hairdresser who is also a single mom. They eventually fall in love and marry. Things are going well until 9/11, when the family (and Muslims across the nation) begin to face hate crimes and persecution. This takes a tragic turn for the Khan family, and this event as well as his wife's remark, is revealed to be the reason he is traveling cross-country. The climax is arguably the *best* part of the movie and one of the most well-acted ones as well.

After the reason for why he's traveling is shown to us, the movie kind of tailspins just a little. I mean, they just throw in the kitchen sink and every little tragedy or crazy, inconceivable moment they can to show Khan being this amazing, loving guy when we already know that about him!

Khan's adventure is "epic" indeed and the longer the movie went on (because it just keeps dragging it out), the more and more I began to realize that this is the Bollywood version of "Forrest Gump". When I realized that, and when the movie just kept getting more far-fetched, my love of this movie's story just faded a bit because they were trying to do way too much. Don't get me wrong, "Forrest Gump" is one of my favorite movies but I think "My Name Is Khan" could've stood on its own and not on the shoulders of that one. It just became more and more crazy and they needed to stop while they were ahead.

That's why it didn't get more stars from me. But it's not a bad movie. Like I said before, it is very sweet and touching but the over-done third act was quite the doozy.