Un Nom pour un autre

Books allow you to travel without leaving, and on the same note, movies too opens up a visual world that one can immerse into, going to places the filmmakers bring you, and experiencing and feeling the emotions that they try to evoke from you. There are few movies which leave me speechless at the end of it. Not because it's bad, but rather, on the contrary, The Namesake is a superb movie. I was in awe with so much that director Mira Nair managed to pack into its 2 hours, and the intricate layers that make up the movie.

The movie begins with Ashoke and (Irfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) Ganguli, newlyweds and Indian immigrants to the USofA. The first third of the movie follows their struggles in their new adopted country, as they begin a new life amongst themselves in a foreign land, and starting a family there in order to provide boundless opportunities for their offspring in the land of the free. Things become more interesting and the family dynamics a joy to watch, once their kids come into play in the latter half of the movie, centered only their firstborn son Gogol Ganguli (Kal Penn).

It's a look into family ties, the clash of cultures and values, especially with their Americanized children's western thinking versus their parents more traditional, conservative views. It's not all bickering if you'd come to expect, but rather, a very meditated story, full of understanding and tolerance, and the realization of change, as epitomized by dad Ashoke. Watching this movie, despite the racial / cultural differences, still made me think a lot about my own state of family affairs, as the story touches on universal themes - family love, parents, the constant desire to be living life in the way you want, and one point that stuck to me throughout, was that about Gogol's struggle with his name, something which I can most definitely identify with.

His disdain for his name Gogol (after Nicola Gogol) almost plays central to the movie. And fleshing out his character perfectly is Kal Penn. Who would've expected one half of Harold and Kumar being able to pull off such a complex role with aplomb? Here, his Gogol/Nikhil on one hand knows what he should be doing about not forgetting his culture and roots, but on the other, with his Caucasian girlfriend (played by Jacinta Barrett), he looks more comfortable in the American way of live he's so familiar with. It's the internal conflicts that we see him go up against, and how culture and myopia seem to influence his choices in the wrong ways.

The rest of the cast are brilliant too, and I'm singling out Irfan Khan and Tabu as nothing short of bringing out excellent performances. They bring forth certain tenderness in their relationship, and plenty of love for their son. You can feel their awkwardness in having to deal with a new culture head on, and yet knowing that it's for the better, for their family, for opportunities. They can do a lot with so little - a touch of the hand, a twinkle of the eye, that you can't help but be welcomed into their world.

The Namesake is filled with beautiful music, from both contemporary tracks as well as classical Indian music, as it parallels the struggles of the family straddling between two different cultures. And there are moments in the film that will even cause those with strong hearts, struggle to hold back a tear or two.

This movie brought me to India, a country I have yet to visit, Kolkatta and the fabled monument of love, the Taj Mahal. With authentic locales, excellent acting and a layered storyline, The Namesake is firmly set in shortlist of my favourite movies of this year. Hurry and watch this in the cinemas before its run is up.

This film is everything a good movie is supposed to be: diverting and credible. You are left in no doubt as to the integrity of the characters in their respective roles. The movie commences with Ashima, a young girl in India (played by intoxicating Tabu), introduced to a prospective husband, Ashoke. She decides she likes him because before entering the room to see him for the first time she sees his Western wingtiped shoes outside the door and decides he must be an interesting person. He is further endeared to her (and us) when she is asked to recite a beloved sample of English verse and he smiles at her composure and suppressed perturbation when interrupted by his pedantic father. She is married to this engineer and taken to the U.S. to live in New York, and slowly begins to adapt. The movie follows her for 25 years as she sees her two children become Americans and face their own (and in the case of one, very poignant) issues.

Loneliness, joy, tribe, custom, and life's relentless call for adaptation are major themes, and they unfold beautifully. Perhaps its most understated point is that none of the good would have come to pass but for the success of the arranged marriage between Ashoke and Ashima, i.e., that this wonderful young woman had the good fortune to link up with the kind and loving Ashoke. It is the success of the parents' marriage that makes everything possible. As a Westerner unfamiliar with the concept of arranged unions I shivered at the thought of what could have happened if Ashoke had not been such a decent man and loving husband and father.

This is a wonderful film.

In 2003 days after its publication, I could hardly put down Pulitzer-winning Jhumpa Lahiri's novel "The Namesake". Lahiri was born in London to Bengali immigrants, raised in Rhode Island, and now lives in Brooklyn.

I was therefore excited when I heard that Mira Nair would be directing a film based on the novel. Readers may be familiar with Nair's films, including "Monsoon Wedding" (2001), "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love" (1996), "Mississippi Masala" (1991), and Oscar-nominated "Salaam Bombay!" (1988); she is also in pre-production on a crime drama, "Shantaram", due in 2008.

Mumbai-based graduate of Harvard (where she met Nair) Sooni Taraporevala wrote the screenplay, as she also did on "Mississippi Masala" and "Salaam Bombay!" (incidentally, she is apparently directing her first film, based on her own screenplay, due to be released this spring). I don't know why, but the setting of the film version of the story is changed from Boston to New York and moved about a decade forward.

The story is that of the Gangulis - Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and wife Ashima (Tabu), Kolkata (Calcutta) immigrants to the U.S. in the early 1960s (1970s in the film), their son Gogol (Kal Penn), and his younger sister Sonali/Sonia (Sahira Nair). As a bachelor in India, Ashoke suffers in a train wreck, but his life is saved because, instead of sleeping on the nighttime journey, he had been reading "The Overcoat" by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol.

When Ashoke and Ashima's first child is born, they are surprised that they cannot leave the hospital without naming him; they prefer to wait for the great-grandmother's suggestion. The name of the Russian writer occurs to Ashoke, and he assigns "pet name" Gogol. The "good name" that the great-grandmother mailed never arrives, so the name Gogol sticks. As the boy grows, his name bothers him; it is neither Indian nor American, nor even a first name. He legally changes his name at college to "Nikhil".

The story follows Gogol/Nikhil as he goes to Yale University, is inspired to be an architect on a family trip to India when they visit the Taj Mahal, goes to graduate school and on to a job in New York City, and experiences several relationships. Wittingly or not, he follows the advice to "play the field" but to reserve marriage for a woman of Bengali origin.

How do the US-born children relate to India? Where is home for the parents and how do they stay in touch and perform their duties while geographically separated from their extended family? "The Namesake" is a story of the power of a name and of family; the immigrant experience; the search for love, context, and identity.

I enjoyed the film but, as often is the case, I found it to fall short of the book, whose power made me an instant fan of Lahiri's (watch for a cameo appearance by her in the film as Aunt Jhumpa). Armchair criticism is easy, and perhaps more meaningful insight is gained by asking if the medium is effectively used to convey the story's ethos.

The answer is a gentle "yes". One of Lahiri's strengths is attention to detail revealed in a matter-of-fact style that doesn't belabor the obvious. But of course the film cannot fairly be expected to reveal all of the original's subplots, such as Gogol's first relationship with his college sweetheart Ruth, or the myriad details beautifully presented in the book surrounding multicultural birthday celebrations, for example.

The film effectively contrasts the chaotic vibrancy of Kolkata with the much more restrained, anonymous big city life of the States through foundational scenes of bridges – the Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly River and Manhattan's 59th Street Bridge. In New York, we can see the business of modern city life rendered mute through a small apartment's glass windows; in India, no such respite from daily life is readily found. Another effective motif is the recurrence of the "Travelogues" exhibit at JFK Airport, reminding us through changing holographic images about the transition in space and culture that the Gangulis experience traveling between America and India.

There are some particularly well composed, emotive scenes, such as the timidly uncertain wave goodbye of Ashima to Ashoke on their first morning in the New World when he leaves on dismal snowy streets for work. I wouldn't, however, characterize the film as a whole as having consistently memorable cinematography, though it is rather effectively subtly understated and helps the story's progress.

The soundtrack could have been more appealing. Perhaps I was too focused on fidelity to the book which of course can simply be an irrelevant distraction, but I didn't relate to the music of high school student Gogol as characteristic of either the late 1970s or 1980s. Strictly speaking, the JFK exhibit was installed in 2000, which is inconsistent in fact and technology with most of the trips that the Ganguli family makes through the airport starting in the 1970s.

All that said, Mira Nair has made a sensitive, touching, and interesting film that triggers an authentic collection of emotions from joy to despair, with dashes of convincingly real everyday humor and chance. I was happy to see in the closing credits two of the three best known Bengali filmmakers mentioned, "For RITWIK GHATAK and SATYAJIT RAY, gurus of cinema with love and salaams"; only Mrinal Sen is missing.

I recommend both the film (expected to be released on March 9) and, especially, the book for immigrants and their friends, as well as to anybody who has felt significant loss, detachment, or uncertain change in their life. It is a story that is remarkable in its subtle depiction of the flip sides of the coin of history and promise.

(I saw the film at a pre-release screening on February 16, 2007 in Cary, NC USA. My review is a version of one that I am publishing in the forthcoming March issue of "Saathee Magazine".)

As a fellow Bengali and Jhumpa Lahiri fan, I had low expectations for a movie adaptation of her poignant novel (though I think The Interpreter of Maladies was better written). However, I was pleasantly surprised when I finally saw the movie at today's NY Times Arts and Leisure Weekend screening. The movie addresses all issues with care, and makes a non-Bengali audience understand the nuances of Bengali culture. The movie captures the hustle and bustle of India, sets the tone of the movie from the very first scene, and, overall, is heartwarming and true. It is humorous at all the right points, and the transition from a loud, vibrant and colorful life to a lonely, cold, and snow-white New York is breathtaking. You can feel Tabu's (Ashima's) loneliness. Jhumpa Lahiri's cameo is well-appreciated, though many in the audience did not catch it. The movie is respectful of Indian culture and uses small instances as canvases for large messages. Everyone is well-cast. Kal Penn shows himself to be capable of more difficult roles than the college-boy stereotype. Tabu and Irrfan Khan do not disappoint, since they are some of the highest-esteemed actors in India today. I felt like going back to Calcutta during all the Indian scenes. Starting the opening credits with the characters of the actors' names replaced with American characters was witty. "Everyday has been a gift, Gogol," Irrfan Khan (Ashok) tells Kal Penn (Gogol) in the movie, but truly, The Namesake is a wonderful gift for its audience, especially since I saw this movie 5 days before my birthday.

This film begins in India in 1977. A young woman meets an eligible man in her parent's home and then, after approving the match, they are soon married. However, he lives in New York and so the bride is soon pulled into a strange new culture. The rest of the film revolves around this marriage and the two children from this union (in particular, the focus is on the son).

I love Mira Nair's films, so I was favorably disposed towards this movie at the outset. However, while I am glad I watched it, I have two strong misgivings. First, because there is so much ground to cover (about 30 years of a family's history), the film comes off as very, very episodic. At times, the film jumps many years at a time and I found this disconcerting and I wanted to see more--because what we saw, I liked. Second, and this is related to my last complaint, is that because the film bounces around so much, the overall effect comes off as very cold and disconnected. Too often, I felt like I really didn't know the people at all. In other words, while the viewer learns about things these people do, who they are down deep is often an enigma. Plus, since you don't really get to know people, too often I had a hard time connected to them or caring about them when bad things occurred to them. Now perhaps this WAS the purpose of the film--the sense of emotional isolation and disconnect these people had, but still I wanted so much more.

I guess my complaints are probably more severe than some viewers might have because I have already seen several films about Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese families living in Western countries (such as the US, Canada and UK), so the idea wasn't so novel. As for me, I know what I would have liked. Instead of a two hour movie, it would have been great to break this into two or even three films or perhaps a miniseries. Really--there's just so much stuff and so many wonderful moments that are missed otherwise. For a somewhat similar experience, try watching "Bollywood/Hollywood", "Bend It Like Beckham" or "Double Happiness"--all are excellent.

On the positive side, however, it does give some insights into Indian culture and how tough it might be to live in a foreign culture--both for the first and second generation. Nice insights and some very touching moments.

Overall, not a bad film at all and well worth seeing--just don't be surprised if it leaves you wanting a lot more.