BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

Monica Ali's celebrated novel gets shortened and simplified for the movies. But Sarah Gavron's film, though often generic, earns its empowering, humanistic stripes by the end.

Happy Bangladesh village girl Nazneen (Tannistha Chatterjee) is married off at 17 to Chanu (Satish Kaushik), a fat, pretentious fool twice her age. Sixteen years later, she's got two rebellious daughters and has hardly ever left her crummy flat in London's traditional immigrant enclave of Brick Lane.

But as her home situation grows shakier, Nazneen begins to fend for herself and falls in love with an increasingly radical British Muslim, Karim (Christopher Simpson), while the Sept. 11 attacks put pressure on the whole Bengali community.

Indian actress Chatterjee plays Nazneen too tentative for too long, but ultimately persuades us of her growing self-esteem and wisdom. Kaushik, a popular comic actor and director in India, is "Brick Lane's" real revelation; he turns the risible Chanu into a fully rounded, surprisingly decent kind of loser, who doesn't make it easy but eventually earns our respect. The film could have used a little more of the book's social context, but it's a satisfying character study and relationship drama all the same.

>Bob Strauss

review>

BRICK LANE

>PG-13: sex, language, drug use, racism.

>Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Fallbrook 7, West Hills; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Royal, West L.A.; Regency South Coast Village, Santa Ana.