Zahir "George" Khan is a Pakistani Muslim who has lived in England since 1937 and has been married to Ella, a British Roman Catholic of Irish descent, for 25 years, and has seven children with her: Nazir, Abdul, Tariq, Saleem, Maneer, Meenah and Sajid. The couple run a popular fish and chips shop. George''s first wife lives in Pakistan. The film starts with an arranged marriage of the oldest son to a Pakistani girl. The son, Nazir, finds himself unable to go through with the marriage. He runs out at the start of the ceremony in front of all the family and guests much to the chagrin of his father and distress of his mother. In retaliation, George disowns Nazir and tells anyone who asks about him that he is dead.
The next crisis to fall on George is the discovery that the youngest son Sajid was accidentally not circumcised as is preferred in Islam (which, comically, sends the Muslim children in the mosque into a panic). Sajid is promptly taken to the hospital to get circumcised. When Ella sees the pain her son has suffered due to the circumcision, the conflict between her love of her husband and her inability to stand up to him, is readily visible. Left alone, the other children (barring Maneer) eat bacon and sausages, which is forbidden by Islam since they contain pork. When Meenah sees that her parents are coming back with Sajid she warns the others and they try to hide the evidence. Ella comes into the kitchen and smells it and keeps George away just long enough for them to get rid of everything.
Meanwhile, marriage is still on George''s mind, and he accepts an introduction to Mr Shah, who is looking for good Pakistani bridegrooms for his two comically ugly and overweight daughters, Nighat and Nushaaba. Despite having seen the daughters'' photographs (and having shown obvious but discreet disgust), George still promises Mr Shah that Abdul and Tariq will marry them. George tells Ella his plans, and she openly disagrees, reminding George of what happened to Nazir. But George takes no notice, again insisting that Nazir is dead and the children have no right whatsoever to disagree with him. Sajid accidentally overhears the conversation, and during a fight with Tariq, Saleem and Meenah, he blurts it out.
The arranged marriages infuriate Tariq, who is already in a relationship with a local white, British girl, Stella Moorhouse, and which he has kept secret from both George and Stella''s racist grandfather. He destroys the clothes and watches that his father traditionally buys for all his sons'' weddings, despite the others'' attempts to stop him. When George later sees the desecrated items, ironically, he assaults Maneer, the only one who follows George''s strict rules, for refusing to tell him the culprit. Ella stands between the two, greatly angering and confusing George. She tells him that his "pig-like" ignorance has caused the alienation of his children, the reason that they are so much "trouble" to him. George, however, does no