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Omar Abbasi
Ms. Blackford
ENG2DR-B
December 16, 2015
My Name is Khan Movie Review
An autistic Indian Muslim father who suffered a great tragedy because of his race
goes on a cross-country journey to speak with the president about terrorism. My Name is Khan
directed by Karan Johar was released on February 12th, 2010 and is two hours and fortyfive minutes long. This movie fits under the genre of Drama. My Name is Khan is a spectacular
representation of the struggles someone with autism has because the actors hand movements,
gestures and his overall facial expressions are almost identical to those who have autism. This
move is very enjoyable because of its overall representation of autism and an example would be
how something a non-autistic person would be frustrated about and how differently an autistic
person would handle it.
My Name is Khan revolves around an autistic Indian Muslim Father who suffers a racial
tragedy that changes him forever. His goal is to meet the President of The United States of
America and talk about terrorism. This film takes place just after the events of 9/11 which was
devastating to all of humanity as we know. As quoted by Rizwan Khan in the movie, The death
of one innocent man is equal to the death of humanity (My Name is Khan). He asks himself
throughout the story about why he had to pay the price of that. The man concept of this movie
was to embrace being who you are and no matter what anyone says to you, always be yourself.
My Name is Khan takes place in the years of 2007 and 2008 with flashbacks from 2001. The

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main setting used in present day of the movie are several cities in the United States of America
including Washington DC, Los Angeles and Georgia. The flashbacks start in a small village in
Pakistan and then move forward to take place in San Francisco. The protagonists name was
Rizwan Khan, his wife name was Mandira Khan and the sons name was Sameer Khan. The main
conflict was person vs. society and how the world perceived Muslims before and after 9/11,
although the movie is not mainly about focusing around the idea of autism. It definitely touches
some key points throughout the story about the struggles of being autistic in the daily world, an
example is that he cannot look at the colour yellow without panicking, and yellow being one of
the most popular colours, he definitely faces some issues there. Also, with the added pressure of
being Muslim post 9/11, Rizwan definitely faces some terrible obstacles throughout the story
which his autism helps him solve.
My Name is Khan is an absolutely brilliant movie which combines the struggles of being
autistic and being a Muslim just after the events of 9/11. The obstacles faced by the protagonist
are brilliantly done and they show the positive sides having Aspergers Syndrome and the
negative sides of it too. Rizwan Khan played by Shah Rukh Khan is an amazing character
which you will love in every second of the movie. He provides a whole new perspective on
things that you see everyday, for example how he is so honest about the salesman he is working
for and how they lie in the products hes selling. His lines in the movie contain deep meanings, a
great example would be when he says this after the events of 9/11, The death of one innocent
man is equal to the death of humanity (My Name is Khan). Which really makes you think about
it and it is true, why should someone innocent ever die. He truly expresses the feeling of being
autistic. In the starting of the movie, he says that he could not express his emotions to his wife in

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words, so he writes it down in a letter for her to read. The lines he says will always leave you
with so much suspense, an amazing example would be, I knew the deaths of 9/11 would cost the
entire humanity. But I did not know that you and I would have to pay the biggest price (My
Name is Khan).
Another reason why I loved this move is because of its consistency in the flashbacks and
its present day. In many other movies, the flashbacks do not really have a smooth transition
between present day and past, but My Name is Khan does has a really smooth transition between
the past and the present. Even though the scenes arent the same, the dialogues are very relevant
between each other. In a few scenes, the past foreshadows the future in some ways like the
tragedies that are to come. In one flashback, they talk about the tragedies of 9/11 and later on in
the present day, he talks about how he had to pay the price of 9/11. Which shows the the past
correlating with the future which as said before, most movies dont do properly.
The director of the movie portrayed an autistic person very effectively and the plot was
very well done by the director. The movie will make you fall in love with the actors and their
lines which have a lot of meaning in them. The ending of the movie was very satisfying because
it completed the plot and the meaning of his journey. My Name is Khan was a good movie which
is suited for all ages and how you being different doesnt always mean that youre weird.

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Works Cited
My Name Is Khan. Dir. Karan John. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD.