The Namesake (2006)

Brief: After surviving a train derailment, Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan) moves to New York with his new wife Ashima (Tabu). Together in this new country, they raise Gogol (Kal Penn) and Sonia (Sahira Nair). Finding it easier to fit in in the new world rather than the old, Gogol struggles against his parents' traditional upbringing and his unusual name.

I'd like to like this movie more than I do. I love watching director Mira Nair's movies because of her wonderful senses of colour and place. She's the only director I can think of that could make a movie set in Calcutta and New York without going to far toward exotic or gritty. She strikes a balance that I think represents most people's experience, making it both personal and relatable.

Relatable, regrettably, is the problem. When you watch Ashima sprinkle curry powder and peanuts into her Rice Krispies on one of her first few days in wintery New York, the corners of your mouth tug into a sad smile for her home and the ways in which her life is about to change. But that's about all I did. I have no immigrant experience on which to draw, and her children's difficulties in finding a niche between the two worlds strikes me as more bratty than anything else. I spent a lot of the time after the film switched focus to Gogol's life wanting him to be less of an ass. Ashima deserved better.

For, despite what the trailer led me to believe, this story is more Ashima's than any one's. Her marriage, her children. 30 years of her life go by under Nair's lens, simply crafted and surprisingly touching. Tabu carries it off with an earthly grace.

Penn, not so much. It's not that he's bad: he just didn't bring a lot of complexity to the role either. It's good starter stuff, but it's too early to tell which way it will go. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of the stuff that would help explain his character are glossed over (how did he get together with Jacinda Barrett's Maxine? What went on between the second date and subsequent marriage*?) There's too much emotional baggage and not enough story to make it compelling.

Even so, between Tabu and Nair, I think we might have something here. B

* I don't think I'll spoil the identity of the bride for you.