My Name is Khan opens with Asperger sufferer Rizvan Khan being pulled aside at the San Francisco airport and interrogated. The officer in charge, about to let him go, asks why he wants to see the President. With touching earnestness, and considerable irony, Khan replies that he has a message for him: "My name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist."
Karan Johar's latest venture is as different from his previous offerings as it is possible to be. US immigrant Rizvan (Shahrukh Khan) arrives in California, and falls in love with Mandira (Kajol), a single mother who works as a hairdresser. They marry, and for a while it looks as though the socially-crippled Rizvan has finally found his 'happy life' with Mandira and her son Sameer (Yuvaan Makaar). But in the wake of 9/11, Sameer is killed in a racist attack, and Mandira rages at Rizvan for being Muslim. She demands that he leave and Rizvan, who takes her at her word, begins tracking the President down so that he can deliver his message.
SRK describes the themes of the movie in terms of relationships: the Mandira-Rizvan story, an individual's relationship with Islam, and the citizen's relationship with his country1. Strangely, he also claims that the movie isn't about 9/11 or terrorism, but those are some of the strongest themes present in the film.
In fact, MNIK's main failing is that it tries to do too much within the scope of one movie. There's the Asperger aspect, which sets up the narrative of Rizvan's journey. Khan's and Mandira's love story and their Hindu-Muslim marriage are secondary, but important, themes. 9/11 and its impact on the Muslim community is, of course, a crucial component of the story, as is the good Muslim/bad Muslim thread. The Muslim community's relations with the United States is also explored. And as if that wasn't enough, another story arc focuses on a natural disaster in Georgia, serving as a reminder of Hurricane Katrina.
Some of these themes - like Khan's Asperger condition - work well. SRK delivers his best performance to date, capturing the awkwardness, facial tics, and random verbosity of an Asperger sufferer excellently. Shorn of his usual Bollywood persona, he creates a character who's unwittingly, but thoroughly, charming. The script, however, doesn't do justice to the issue - how exactly would Rizvan, lacking the most basic social skills, ever perform a salesman's job? His heroic efforts in Georgia leading a rescue team are equally implausible. Bollywood normally isn't fazed by this suspension of disbelief, but Karan Johar seems to be trying to make this movie fairly authentic.
Kajol is another strong point in the movie, as is her chemistry with SRK; years of anticipation as the pair reunite certainly paid off for the audience. Kajol's vivacity and sheer liveliness, as well as her grief and anger in the latter half of the movie, are highly believable. But again, the plot could've been a little better - as it stands, there's no indication that Mandira put any thought into marrying a man whose ability to interact with others is significantly worse than that of her pre-teen son. Watching the pair interact, it sometimes feels as though Rizvan is an adopted second son.
A couple of the other themes, though, could've been omitted entirely - like the mini-Katrina incident in Georgia. Whether it was to belabor the point that the government is faulty, or to add superhuman dimensions to Khan's character, the story arc was superfluous. What's worse is Johar's depiction of blacks. Mama Jenny is a loud, heavy, Aunt Jemima2-type woman who gives Khan a place to sleep, after which he joins her in an all-black church service where the worshipers break out into cheerful chorus. I'm not sure if Johar only intended to introduce comic elements, but this was bordering on the racist.
There are other concepts in the movie that chip away at its credibility, like the theme of "good" and "bad" Muslims. It is one that has already been done to death. But Johar sets up a highly contrived scenario where Khan helps apprehend a radical Muslim doctor, for which he gets melodramatically stabbed during his rescue efforts in Georgia.
Despite these issues, My Name is Khan is a good movie. It makes an honest and mostly successful effort at addressing the concerns of Muslims in a world that has become increasingly hostile towards them. It handles, with a surprising amount of sensitivity, the plight of an autistic human in our society. And it is, eventually, a movie about building relationships that are free of fear and prejudice.


Who is the world's biggest movie star? Brad Pitt? George Clooney? Nope. Think bigger. 


Done guessing? In India, nine year-olds and ninety-90 year-olds alike could answer this question in a heartbeat. Shah Rukh Khan, star of the newly released My Name is Khan, is ranked above Osama bin Laden, the Dalai Lama and Oprah in Newsweek's list of the 50 global elite. (If you're still stuck on Pitt and Clooney, they're both absent from the list.) Not only is Khan an actor, but he is also an exceptional businessman, owning two production companies and a cricket team. 


But while his off-screen credentials are noteworthy, it is his on-screen talents that make him legendary. Such acting abilities can now be seen in My Name is Khan, one of the most controversial films in recent memory, though most Americans may not even know this film has been released outside Bollywood.


My Name is Khan stars Khan as Rizwan Khan, a Muslim man with severe Asperger syndrome living in San Francisco. He successfully woos Hindu hairstylist Mandira, played by Kajol (Fanaa), against the wishes of his family, who disapprove because of Mandira's religious background. But because of Rizwan's condition, he has only been taught to classify people as good or bad, so he does not understand their disapproval.


Rizwan and Mandira live happily until 9/11 changes their neighbors' and friends' feelings towards them. Having the Muslim last name "Khan" makes the couple a perceived threat, and because of this, their entire family suffers. Thus, Rizwan begins his pilgrimage to meet the president of the United States and say one simple phrase: "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist."


Anyone who has seen Bollywood mega-hits Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge knows that the pairing of Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan is not to be taken lightly. Considered by some to be the ultimate on-screen couple in all of Bollywood, their chemistry cannot be denied. The Maratha Mandir theater in Mumbai has shown Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge on loop since its release in 1995, and the couple's portrayal as lovers in that movie caused much speculation as to their relationship off-screen. Khan and Kajol reprise that relationship in Khan, coming across so believably that at no time would the audience ever imagine the couple having separate partners back in the real world.


While Bollywood movies are known for their over-the-top romances, the relationship between Rizwan and Mandira is perfectly developed, creating a strong bond between the two. Khan even does a great job of not letting his disease distract from their love story, but rather embraces it and makes it into an adorable quality that would be difficult for any girl to resist. 


The most important part of this movie is the foregrounding of the situation that Muslims were put into following the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Not only was an entire classification of people put under scrutiny based solely on religion and geographic roots, but the jilted treatment of anyone of South Asian descent was highlighted in a stark and disheartening light. The automatic prejudice that they experienced, having to change their appearance to make themselves "look less Indian," comes across as absolutely ridiculous, namely because they are Americans, too.


As Rizwan goes on his pilgrimage to clear his name from the terrorist watch list, he finds himself walking into an even more dangerous situation. A Muslim man searching for the president because he needs to "deliver a message" sets off too many red flags to count, and, because of his disease, Rizwan becomes a walking target. The important question that this movie asks is, what if Rizwan was white? Because he is Muslim, Rizwan is automatically classified as a threat, once again illustrating the obvious racial profiling that the American government states does not exist.


My Name is Khan should be recognized for the topic it chooses to address. Not many filmmakers would be daring enough to make a movie based off such a painfully strong reality, when they could instead be making an allegorical movie about blue people on a far away moon. What My Name is Khan has to offer is a slap in the face to the ignorance and prejudice of our nation, proving that there are only good people and bad people in the world - and the good people are all fighting for the same thing.