An actor saving a movie is a rare thing, but Om Puri has done it again in the new drama/comedy East Is East. Written by a Kureishi imitator (Ayub Khan-Din), the movie is set in the early '70s, in an English town called Salford. Puri plays a fanatical Pakistani father married to a British woman (Linda Bassett). They own a small chip shop and a small house packed with seven rebellious kids. With the exception of one boy, all the children are headed one way (toward the total assimilation of British culture), the father the other (the preservation of Pakistani values), making a big showdown inevitable. A rather ordinary story, but Om Puri saves the day by doing what he does best: deepening and extending his character's emotional and psychological range.

"When I read the script I thought, 'My God, this is a horrible man,'" Om Puri said when we met at Café Septième recently. He ordered scotch on the rocks; I had a White Russian. "This is no way to treat the children; this is no way to treat the wife. This is no way to make his children believe in something which he believes in. But then when I went over the script a couple of times, I realized there is a hidden script behind this script. There is another layer. George Khan has been married to this English woman for 25 years, and has brought up bright children. So it would have been impossible for the family to survive if he were that bad. This woman would have left him a long time ago if he were a monster.

"The fact is, the film begins on a happy note. Everybody is happy. But a big blow happens when the eldest son runs away from the marriage ceremony. He [George Khan] is humiliated in front of the entire community. So he feels insecure, worried that his other children will follow suit. And since he has a small mind, the only language he knows is force, the rule of fists. And he wants to nail his kids down as soon as possible so that they don't drift."

While admiring Puri's odd-looking face, I observe that the role he plays in this film is opposite from the one he played in My Son the Fanatic.

"You know, they do share a common background. They are both conditioned by the same traditions. They are both working-class men. Both are not formally educated, and yet they are oceans apart. Parvez [Puri's role in Fanatic] is truly a modern man. He has assimilated into an alien society. He can articulate his thoughts; he is self-taught. Whereas George Khan can't. He is a small man. For him, the enormous circumstances he is thrown into are tough to handle."

I ask if he excavates every character he plays, still taking in his face.

"I do. I do," says Puri. "In fact, when I reached London I sat down with the writer to clarify certain things which I didn't understand about George Khan. I wanted to study with him this character he invented, to see where he came from, what were his motives. This is something I do with all my roles; I try to complicate who I'm playing."

Which was harder to play?

"East Is East was more challenging, because the script didn't favor George. It would have been easy just to show him as an unenlightened person, but it was difficult to portray him as a human being."

Now I'm lost in Om Puri's face. Not handsome in the traditional sense: Om Puri's nose is awkward; his eyes are a little lazy; his skin too rough. But there are moments when he is suddenly beautiful, perfect, and before you can figure out why, he is a normal man again. Both his face and his sharp intelligence make the simple men he plays more complex and more interesting than they actually are.