This movie kicked ass! Bursting with energy, funny, some great cinematography, good character development and of course some great music (I’m not into punk, but damn, you couldn’t not like it). Educational, too: The Taqwacores served as a crash course on Islam, and a look into a culture I’m really not familiar with.
The viewpoint character is Yusef, an innocent and observant Muslim who moves into a household of Muslim punk rockers. Too punk for mainstream Muslims, too Muslim for other punks, they and many others formed their own scene and community of outsiders, calling themselves “Taqwacores”. Though at first appalled by their weird habits, Yusef finds that they are as devout as him, each in their own way; though there’s quite a bit of friction (especially with the hardcore straight-edge landlord Umar), there’s also mutual respect and openness, and they manage to live together in something like harmony.
The movie only has one queer character, and not a very major one; this is still a change from the novel on which it’s based. Along with a couple of major female characters (especially Rabeya, the “burqa girl”), he adds a nice dash of gender and queer politics into the mix.