Testa's takes: 'The Namesake'

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

By Matthew Testa

‘The Namesake’
Directed by Mira Nair, written by Sooni Taraporevala, based on the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri
With Kal Penn (Gogol), Tabu (Ashima), Irrfan Khan (Ashoke), Jacinda Barrett (Maxine), Zuleikha Robinson (Moushumi) and Sahira Nair (Sonia)
Rated PG-13 for sexuality/nudity, a scene of drug use, some disturbing images and brief language.

With its poetic evocations of cross-cultural confusion, its attention to the complexities of family, and its meditative tones, “The Namesake” is an articulate and observant immigrant story, not unlike the previous films by its accomplished director, Mira Nair.

In this story of two generations of Bengali immigrants, based on the popular novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, the characters are so sympathetic and authentically rich that you feel you know them personally by the movie’s end.

Avoiding the clichés of other films about immigrant children wrestling with assimilation and rebelling against their parents, “The Namesake” begins at the beginning, with the courtship between the somewhat Westernized Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu). It’s the ’70s, and Ashoke, an engineering student who has immigrated to Queens, has returned to India briefly for an arranged marriage to the beautiful Ashima.

Ashoke brings Ashima from the tropical sultriness of Calcutta back to his flat in New York, where the bone-chilling winter seems to have drained all color from the world. Ashima is strong enough to eventually adapt, but one senses in the years that follow that she never quite lets go of her longing for India.

Whether directly conveyed or tangentially referenced, her yearning colors the entire film.

By contrast, Ashoke is the more philosophical of the two and the more adaptive. He is more prepared to adjust to American ways and, as a professor, his concerns lie with gently passing his intellectual pursuits on to his son Gogol (Kal Penn) and daughter Sonia (Sahira Nair).

As with many immigrant children, Gogol is unremittingly conflicted. And why shouldn’t he be? The two personalities of his parents and the legacies of his two points of origin, India and the U.S., have set up the perfect head-heart conflict for him. Is Gogol an American or an Indian? Is he a pot-smoking goof off or an Ivy League student? Is he his mother’s son or his father’s son?

The beauty of this film is that it never chooses sides in this conundrum. Ultimately, Gogol comes to embrace that he is the benefactor of both legacies. But it isn’t an easy journey to get there.

Where most movies about generational differences in immigrant families root for the offspring and vilify the parents, “The Namesake” spends its first third with the first generation. By the time they have children, you are so invested in the momentum of their love story that you want as much for them as for their progeny.

By the film’s end, you realize that each character is both connected by the impervious bonds of family and separated by their own individuality. Gogol, for his part, is his own man but also truly a product of both his parents. It just takes him several decades to figure it out and to take ownership of it. It’s a transformation worth waiting for.
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Testa's takes: 'The Namesake' | Planet JH News Article: Movie Reviews

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