AllMovie

An actress frequently described as alluring, Tannishtha Chatterjee -- unlike many of her colleagues in Indian cinema -- displayed both a willingness to work internationally and a readiness to lose her glamorous façade when jumping headfirst into characterizations totally unlike her. Chatterjee took one of her earliest bows with a supporting part in director Anwar Jamal's 2002 sociopolitical drama The Little Republic, then headed to Germany for a lead in Florian Gallenberger's Bengali-language melodrama Shadows of Time (2004), and ushered in a key supporting performance in director Sanjay Jha's spiritually charged drama Strings. In 2007, Chatterjee was selected from hundreds of actresses to portray the lead role of a Bangladeshi girl, Chanu Ahmed, who moves to Britain to accommodate an arranged marriage, in director Sarah Gavron's slice-of-life drama Brick Lane (2007).