Before Kate Hudson‘s name forces you to click away out of pure instinct, please take me word that the film at hand might be strong stuff. Here we have an early preview of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, writer-director Mira Nair‘s (Monsoon Wedding, Amelia) adaptation of a Mohsin Hamid-penned novel, co-starring Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland, and Riz Ahmed (Four Lions) — the lattermost of whom is taking the lead and can be spotted above, thanks to CineMosaic (via ThePlaylist).

Fundamentalist sees him playing Changez, a young, Pakistani-American banker who, following 9/11, undergoes “a seismic shift” in terms of relationships, world view, and way of life. With his girlfriend, Erica (Hudson), haunted by “ghosts of her past,” Changez soon flees to Lahore and finds himself mentioned in conjunction with those responsible for a political bombing. Murkiness abounds.

Nair expanded a bit in an interview with The Bangalore Mirror, claiming her film’s about “the myopia with which we look at issues like fundamentalism; the west, the collapse of Wall Street and a genuine dialogue with America; [and] two men, an American and a Pakistani, who probably in a different time and place would be great friends but are not because of the world we live in.” A Venice premiere is being planned, while a theatrical opening can be expected in October or November. For now, I’m plenty intrigued.

Does The Reluctant Fundamentalist sound promising to yourself?