The short street of the title is at the center of a community of Bangladeshi emigres, part of the England-bound South Asian diaspora from what was once the jewel in the British Empire’s crown. Brick Lane is really a somewhat isolated refuge from the London megalopolis and its diverse peoples. Except for the increasingly belligerent young nativist toughs who glower at and sometimes threaten the “Pakis” they fear and hate.

It’s not that I’ve never found Ben Stiller funny. I laughed at his psychotic fitness instructor in the camp comedy Heavy Weights. But that was in 1995, and I have to say that Stiller hasn’t done much for me since.

I suppose it was quite expectable that a fair sprinkling of teens were in the sparse audience for this week’s preview of Western New York native Nanette Burstein’s shrewdly assembled documentary, American Teen. They were there, presumably, to see themselves represented, and from their voluble reactions during the movie, and the snippets of comment I heard afterward, it seems probable were pretty satisfied with what they were shown. Anyway, it’s probably modestly wholesome that they were interested in any documentary movie, and this one is virtually, or intentionally, calculated to engage youngsters, and probably their elders, too.