‘The Namesake’ beautiful and consistently empathetic
By Mary F. Pols, MEDIANEWS STAFF
DIRECTOR MIRA NAIR’S film “The Namesake” is so involving and touching that to find fault feels akin to nit-picking all the way home from a lovely dinner party.
Did the hostess let some exquisite courses linger just long enough, but rush others? Can you forgive her if she left out some dishes, while deepening the flavors of others? Despite its length — just over two hours — there are indeed places where Nair has rushed the storytelling, omitting some character development that existed in the source material, Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel about a Bengali family’s assimilation to a life in America.
As with Nair’s recent version of “Vanity Fair,” you watch thinking what a fabulous six-hour miniseries this would have made. But the film should resonate with many viewers; it’s beautiful and consistently empathetic.
It’s a multi-generational tale, which begins in Calcutta with an introduction between a singer, Ashima (Tabu), and a scholarly emigrant, Ashoke (Irrfan Khan), the potential bride and groom in an arranged marriage. Ashima’s decision to say yes is made almost on a whim; she sees Ashoke’s American-made shoes outside her doorway and steps into them. Standing in them, she feels something, perhaps a combination of comfort and the prospect for adventure. It’s an evocative moment.
They marry and Ashoke immediately takes Ashima back to the U.S. with him.
They become lovers, then friends, huddled together against the cold backdrop of a foreign land. Eventually, they have two children and move to the suburbs. Their relationship, first tentative, then true, then tragic, is enough to be hang a whole movie on. But like Lahiri’s book, the story shifts and refocuses on the actual “namesake,” their son, Gogol (Kal Penn), who is almost defiantly “American” throughout his teens and 20s and only slowly comes to understand that his parents’ culture is actually essential to his being.
Shifts in focus can present some challenges on the page, especially in a multi-generational story. You can feel as though you’ve been forced to desert some characters you really liked, but with the time afforded by the pace of reading, that can be forgiven. It’s harder in a film, where the characters you have fallen for are touched up with some wrinkles and gray hair and then essentially forsaken.
Penn, known best for his comedy (he’s Kumar from “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”), gives an adequate portrayal of Gogol. He’s best in the scenes where the arrogance of youth is required, as when he announces he’s changing his name to Nikhil, or Nick for short. (Ashoke had named him for a Russian author who played a critical role in his own decision to become an American.)
But Nair’s dilemma is that her actors Khan and Tabu, both big stars in India, have captivated us to the point where every moment spent away from them feels a bit like a moment wasted.
Look for the striking Zuleikha Robinson as Moushumi, the Bengali girl Ashima would like her son to marry (actually, saying look for her is like saying, have you noticed the sun?)
The American characters fare less well. Gogol begins dating a posh New Yorker, Maxine (the insipid Jacinda Barrett), and moves in with her and her parents. These are the movie’s weakest scenes; there’s nothing redeeming about them. Maxine and Co. just seem like rich, silly white people, whereas in Lahiri’s book, you felt the allure of both their persons and their lives.
This is one of those times where having read the book before seeing the movie gives you an advantage; you can fill in the gaps in your head. That’s not a great sign for the filmmaking or Sooni Taraporevala’s screenplay. But in at least one case, the fault is not the film’s. Lahiri’s book also ends on an abrupt note, one of those endings that feels deliberately “unhappy,” as if the author, in trying to avoid the triteness of a traditionally happy ending, went too far in the other direction.
The fact that the book is still so pleasing is a credit to all that Lahiri did right, and the same is true for Nair’s film.
will take me to c it. 