Mira Nair, the director of KAMA SUTRA, MONSOON WEDDING and 2004's VANITY FAIR, forms Sooni Taraporevala's adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's novel into an engaging and emotionally resonant film about Indian immigrants to the U.S. and the divide that is formed between them and their American children. Blessed with a first-rate cast, the story slowly builds, creating a complexity, which stings of life, which rarely goes where we have planned it to go, but often, where we came from influences where we end up, usually in unexpected ways.
As a young man, Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan, A MIGHTY HEART) was content traveling via books. But after a near-fatal accident, he takes the chance for a new life in America. Later, he returns to India where he is arranged to marry Ashima (Tabu, I HAVE FOUND IT), who is quickly gripped by the loneliness of being a stranger living in a strange land. When she wants to move back to India, Ashoke reminds her of the opportunities lost to their children if they return to their homeland.
Moving forward in time, their son Gogol (Kal Penn, VAN WILDER), who has now rejected his strange name and goes by Nick, dreads the family trip to India, as does his younger, punked out sister Sonia (Sahira Nair, MISSISSIPPI MASALA). However, there he discovers his major after witnessing the grandeur of the Taj Mahal. When, he heads off to college he meets a rich, white girl named Max (Jacinda Barrett, LADDER 49), whose family loves the finer things in life. Their dating worries his parents, who would rather have him with a nice Bengali girl like Moushumi (Zuleikha Robinson, 2006's THE MERCHANT OF VENACE). When Gogol brings Max home to meet his parents, she boldly ignores his requests for her to avoid public shows of affection, which is something he has never seen his parents do.
At first the story goes along very conventional lines, but as the characters get older, the episodes build one on top of each other forming a family history that touches on many universal issues, as well as themes that are unique to immigrants. Unexpected developments will push the characters into new directions. The film doesn't really have a central character, because the story is about the family as a whole. Ashima and Gogol, who was named after his father's favorite writer Nikolai Gogol, have the greatest character arcs, which move in opposing directions. Ashima must integrate new American ways into her Indian traditions, while Gogol struggles to find a place for his Indian heritage in his American upbringing. That's why the construction of the family history is so important to understanding the internal struggles that Gogol will go through.
Bollywood stars Khan and Tabu give wonderful performance. Khan's Ashoke is a man who doesn't like to express his feelings to the world, but his face cannot hide them. He is kind and accommodating and wants a closer relationship with his distant teenage son, but doesn't know how to get it. Making the father/son generation divide even greater is the added distance of Ashoke being very Indian, while Gogol is very American. Tabu's Ashima isn't a cold woman, but she knows the time and place for emotions. Take note to how her demeanor subtly changes when the family goes on the vacation to India. Penn, who is probably best known from the stoner comedy HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE, gives a solid performance as a distracted teen who wants nothing to do with his alien parents and then as a college grad coming to terms with an increasingly split identity.
In THE NAMESAKE, Nair shows us that despite the many differences between general American culture and Indian culture there are many common experiences. It's a powerful story not because it's Indian, but because it's human.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
