This is a generational family saga everyone can relate to, and Nair gives it her special magic. But her ardor for the material matches her ambition. Nair tries to shoehorn too much of a big novel into a small two-hour movie. It takes a family tragedy to give Gogol a sense of himself and his namesake. Gogol has identity problems, not solvable when he leaves the blonde for the Bengali beauty Moushumi (a zesty Zuleikha Robinson). The grown Gogol, played with ferocity and feeling by Kal Penn, of Harold and Kumar fame, turns his back on everything Indian, and not just by taking up with a blond socialite (Jacinda Barrett). It is directed by Mira Nair and is based upon the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri who appeared in the movie. The birth of their son, Nikhil, who is given the pet name Gogol, after the Russian author Ashoke reveres, intensifies the cultural clash. The Namesake is a 2007 film which received a limited release in the United States. In Calcutta, circa the 1970s, Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) agree o an arranged marriage and to ting their new lives in Manhattan. In a way, though, this discrepancy suits the movie’s purposes: The old-world grace of the Indian actors provides a gentle counterpoint to the energy of the Indian-American kid still trying to find his way home from the burger joint.Cultural assimilation is a specialty for Mira Nair, the India-born, Manhattan-based director who found he right balance in Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding and soars with her film version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake. But in the scenes that call for him to tap into adult reserves of grief and loss, Penn is no match for two actors as seasoned and subtle as Tabu and Khan. He gives Gogol an irreverent humor that the book’s protagonist lacked. Kal Penn, the co-star of the stoner-buddy classic Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (in its way, an equally compelling meditation on the immigrant experience) has big, expressive features and an appealingly goofy manner. Thanks to superb performances from Tabu and Khan (both stars of the Indian cinema), the scenes between Ashoke and Ashima shimmer with tenderness and nuance-especially early in the film, as the two shy newlyweds learn to make love, do laundry, and sprinkle Rice Krispies with curry powder in this strange, cold land where they know no one but each other. When he ends up with a brainy Bengali with assimilation issues of her own, she feels more like a plot device than a character (despite a ferocious and funny performance from Zuleikha Robinson). Later, Gogol’s affair with a wealthy blond WASP (Jacinda Barrett) comes and goes too quickly for us to know what she was to him besides a non-Indian girlfriend. Visiting the Taj Mahal with his family as an adolescent, Gogol rushes over to his parents and blurts, “I’m going to be an architect!” Before you have time to chuckle at his youthful enthusiasm, there he is at an architecture firm, already graduated from college and sketching away.
The namesake full movie 2007 movie#
In order to make the temporal leaps the story requires, the movie contracts and expands like an accordion. Along the way there are moments of great poignancy, as when Ashoke tries to explain the name’s significance to his teenage son-if only he could get him to turn down that Pearl Jam song. Virtual strangers to one another and with Ashima now living in a new and very strange land, their relationship quickly takes a turn when Ashima gives birth. Large groups of Indian immigrants gather in suburban living rooms to grieve, gossip, eat, and sing. The Namesake On the heels of their arranged marriage, Ashoke (Irrfan Kahn) and Ashima (Tabu) jet off from sweltering Calcutta to a wintry New York where they begin their new life together. People marry, divorce, have children, and die. It’s tough to summarize the movie from there on out, except to say that several decades of life pass in the Ganguli family.
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