December 5, 2022
Waheed (The Collaborator) explores familial love and morality in this underwhelming account of an Indian father’s turbulent relationship with his estranged daughter. Sara Shah was five when her mother died and seven when her father, Kaiser, sent her away to boarding school in the U.S., from their home in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Kaiser, a retired doctor, details his thoughts in an extended interior monologue, as he rehearses what he will tell Sara when she visits as an adult, about her mother, her childhood, and most important, about the painful truth of the job he held while Sara was away, working as a “punishment surgeon” to carry out Hammurabi-style amputations on convicts. Much of the narrative involves Kaiser processing his shame and guilt over his work, a Faustian bargain that came at the expense of a relationship he could have forged with Sara while paying for the opportunities he wanted her to have. There’s a good bit of texture on Kaiser’s immigrant experience in his otherwise long-winded narration, but a striking lack of detail on Sara’s time in the U.S., and a series of letters from her at the end feel tacked on and stilted. The heart is there, but it doesn’t quite hang together. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc.