So I watched
The Namesake this weekend. There’s too much in it to give it a short review, so I’ll start by summarizing it in a sentence: It’s absolutely brilliant. From the larger-than-life characters to
Nitin Sawhney’s score to great shots of Calcutta, the Taj and India.
Mira Nair, of
Monsoon Wedding fame, has outdone herself. She has stepped outside of hackneyed traditions of filmography that cater only to teeny Desi Americans with saccharine charms of being “born confused.” Nair’s is a more American movie while at the same time being a tale of the immigrant experience. And more impressively, she manages to do this, without straying too far from
Jhumpa Lahiri’s very popular novel.
(Continue on to read a semi-spoiler review.)
Ashima (
Tabu) is a marriageable Bengali teenager who delights in English literature, takes an immediate liking to her desh-returned suitor from America, Ashoke Ganguli
(Irfan Khan). The couple relocates to America, and Tabu struggles with alien weather, technologies, and etiquette (sometimes the lack thereof). An important backdrop to this are a fateful train conversation and a subsequent accident which configure a relationship between Khan and the Russian writer Gogol, whom Khan adores.
While Khan is buried in the pages of Gogol’s
Overcoat, he is interrupted by another Bengali passenger who inspires him to travel to America and see the world.
Overcoat was also the book on whose pages the flashlight of rescue workers shone, as Khan lay buried
one more time, deep in the debris of the train after it crashed disastrously. Gogol’s
Overcoat not only saved Khan’s life but allowed the next few chapters of it to unfold.
And unfold they do, intriguingly.
Kal Penn, unfailingly charismatic, grows up as Gogol Ganguli, and like many of us perhaps, blissfully unaware of his parent’s mountains and seas of sacrifice. Not to mention the significance of the name “Gogol.” Awkward in his teens, skin, name and diasporic outsiderness, Pen eventually becomes “Nick” from “Nikhil” - a far cry from “Gogol.” He goes to Yale, and soon against the desi grain in becoming an architect, eventually locating himself in white Americana and the love of a wealthy and affectionate blond woman. Penn grows increasingly closer to his girlfriend’s parents, who epitomize the American family he desired but never had, while losing touch with his own Indian one.
Tabu tries to connect with Kal, tirelessly but unsuccessfully, only to realize that her son has moved on to bigger and better things. Emptynest syndrome and the individuality of Americanized realities cast a perpetual gloom over her that threatens to engulf the audience. Slowly but surely, Tabu and Irfan age. But in the midst of this gloom, their love continues unabated while being understated.The on-screen chemistry between the duo is rather masterful, thanks in part to Irfan’s near-perfect rendition of the enlightened, soft-spoken, professorial father and husband, who puts his family before himself, and secrelty etches his many sacrifices. Always endorsing his family’s various whims and decisions.
I am told that the crowd in a European film festival gasped just as Penn did on screen, upon recieving the news of Irfan’s passing away. Penn rushes to see his father’s deadbody, and begins on a path of weightful nostalgia and overwhelming regret. The monumentality of his family’s self- and other sacrifice dawn on him gradually yet unrelentingly, and Penn unplugs himself from his escapism.
As Penn and his girlfriend grow apart, enters his life a Bengali woman, Moushumi (Zuleikha Robinson). Francophile Moushimi charms Penn into a whirlwind romance that ends in a big Bengali wedding. Marriages are best not done in haste, as Penn soon learns this, as Zuleikha’s past of romantic adventurousness returns in the form of a “Pierre,” a French lover. Being Bengali isnt enough to make a marriage work, opines Zuleikha while breaking the news of her paramour to Kal. Kal tells her he never married her because she was Bengali.
Overall, Penn does well. As does Tabu. Both their characters have a lot of character. Although, her Bengali accent disappoints. Not to be a pedant, but the backdrop of Bengal is quite prominent here, with allusions to the region’s cultural richness. Everyone seems to enjoy reading or singing or dancing in Bengal. A stereotype of course which has been as big a bane for my own Bengaliness as a boon in my multicultural realities.
It is never easy to cram a long novel into a movie. 30-something years spanning across two continents: the results may appear a tad rushed. Penn’s turnaround after his father Irfan’s death also appears sudden, but all this, if you ask me, are miniscule drawbacks in a movie that by and large, charms and delights.
In sum, The Namesake is a paean from Nair to our families, parents and their great sacrifices. The movie is about identities as much as it is about immigration, integration, love and loss. It is about the short-sighted choices we make to make our lives comfortable, at the expense of others. It’s a reminder of the taken-for-grantedness we may fall into towards our loved ones. And finally, it is about the burden of regret.
Another review I read spoke of how the movie made the reviewer call his parents. I must say I felt very similarly, and I called home as soon as I got back.
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