Based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s best selling novel, Mira Nair’s version targets the NRI audience in a touching film of parenthood and the challenges that lie for immigrants in The United States of America. It is a deeply felt look at the ties of family and birthplace, the loneliness of living far from your home, and the connections that hold everything together, sometimes in ways we don’t appreciate until much later.
Ashima(Tabu) moves halfway around the world to live with her new husband, Ashoke(Irrfan Khan), following an arranged marriage in Calcutta. Ashima must adjust to life in New York and its harsh winter. In a lonely and cold country, Ashima does her best to do all that she can to settle in her new home while loving her husband and parenting two children, son Gogol(Kal Penn) and daughter Sonia(Sahira Nair). The children grow up the American way where young Gogol, in particular, struggles with both his name(he was named, on the spur-of-the-moment, after his father’s favorite Russian author, Nicolai Gogol) and his cultural background.
There is little that Gogol appreciates about his family’s values and traditions. He falls in love with a beautiful American girl and figures out what he wants to do when he visits India with his family. He decides to pursue architecture after he sees the Taj Mahal.
The family shatters after the untimely and sudden death of Ashoke due to a severe heart attack while he is away. Everything changes for Gogol after this, and Gogol is left to face his grief and guilt, while his mother, having finally adjusted to living in America with her husband, now finds herself with a tormenting future as a solitary widow with two grown up children.
What is touching and easily relatable is Gogol’s helplessness and remorse of being unable to turn back the clock and appreciate his father while he was still alive. Ashima’s willpower in such challenging times is heart warming. Gogol’s maturity in understanding the circumstances and the Indian values and customs that honor his father are the uplifting moments of the movie. He then gets married to a Bengali girl to his mother’s delight and in the typical American way, although rather crudely, she dumps him for an ex-lover. Gogol grows through these phases to become someone he wasn’t but someone his father would’ve wished him to be.
This is the story of the Ganguly family, an immigrant family that is faced with insurmountable circumstances in a foreign land and a culture strikingly different from theirs.
Tabu and Irrfan Khan together create a lovely chemistry between Ashima and Ashoke – two people wed in an arranged marriage who learn to love each other, but who show their love in much more subtle ways than most American couples.
Conservatism personified. Irrfan Khan is excellent as the father and Tabu is likeable as well. Watch Irrfan when he talks to his son personally. Especially when he narrates the incident in his life that prompted him to move to America and subsequently name his son ‘Gogol’.
The real revelation is Penn, who comes from the background of comedies like the ‘Kumars’ series. As Gogol, he shows substantial dramatic range, from being a smart but uncomfortable teenager to a mature man coming to terms with his background and his father whom he lost out on valuing when he could have.
Technically, The Namesake isn’t slick or crisp in its direction. It is slow paced and often indulges into the unnecessary areas. One disturbing aspect for any Indian would be Mira Nair’s inept portrayal of Calcutta as a poor man’s township and the fake accent which is definitely not the way Indians speak English no matter where they are and what accent they follow. The film is visually satisfying though as it captures New York, the countryside and The Taj Mahal beautifully.
Finally, all this leaves The Namesake as a touching film, portraying the lives of an immigrant family in America as they struggle to move on with their new lives in a new world while salvaging whatever they can of their culture and background. Obviously, the film will find more relevance with those who have been through these phases in their lives but nevertheless, it is a good film to watch for all.
- 7.23 On a scale of 1-10.