This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 7:42 am and is filed under Drama, Foreign Language, N, NEW ON VIDEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Mira Nair
Starring: Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn, Sahira Nair, Jagganath Guha, Jacinda Barrett, Zuleikha Robinson
Director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) took on Sooni Taraporevala’s screen treatment of Jhumpa Lahir’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel to make a patient and wonderfully detailed drama about an immigrant couple and their American-born children. The story is authentic and believable, though it is slow and quite mundane. The dialog flows naturally and the performances feel as though no one is acting.
Irfan Kane is Ashoke Ganguli, an Indian professor living in the US, who returns to India to find a bride. He finds the beautiful Ashima (Tabu) and the two quickly decide to marry, after which both return to the US to start a family. They soon have a baby boy, followed by a girl. At this point, we are mostly done with the subtitles and the story stops briefly while the kids are teenagers, before moving on another ten years or so. The son, Gogol, played by Kal Penn, becomes the main character in the story now, though his parents still figure prominently. Gogol finds his way through life as a frustrated American-born visual minority and tries to find a balance with happiness and his parent’s wishes, as well as comfort and acceptance of who he is.
There is no doubt that Namesake is top flight filmmaking. There is some doubt, however, whether many viewers will care. The story is slow and is really less engaging than many life stories that I been told by friends from different cultural backgrounds. I can’t deny that the story did draw me in and make me care, though, so it is a solid drama that flows as naturally as watching a friend live it. Not for everyone, but those who like it, will love it.
