"The Namesake" -- my review

After procrastinating on this for a while, Ramya and I finally watched "The Namesake". It was well worth the wait :-)

Premise

The story, as must be already known, is about the immigrant Ganguli family (Irrfan Khan and Tabu) in upstate New York and their two children Gogol (Kal Penn) and Sonia (Sahira Nair). The movie begins in a bit of a flashback around Irrfan and Tabu's marriage. They make a very cute couple who are beginning a new life together. Then the children arrive and gradually grow up among their white counterparts. Somewhere along the way, Gogol hits a roadblock about his name where everyone starts teasing him about its weirdness and he feels left out. This leads to constant bickering with the parents about why they named him so. The name incidentally happens to be derived from Nikholai Gogol, a favorite author of Irrfan.

The rest of the movie is about how Gogol comes about to discover the links behind his name and eventually discovers the peace and freedom which has always been missing in his life and leads to all the confusion and battles of his life.

First off, what really impressed me about this movie is how well the story has been formulated. Jhumpa Lahiri's work is really amazing. What is more amazing is how well Mira Nair has brought to life such a complex story to life without getting drawn into lazy frills or avoiding difficult shots. That, for me, is the mark of a true filmmaker.

The other two winners of the movie are music and cinematography. The movie starts off in the mid-70s and ends somewhere in the last couple of years. The music shifts according to the different eras and different moods. It literally drew us to become involved in the movie. The background voice for Tabu's hindustani alaaps are really haunting. But, our favorite was definitely the sexy remix of Mukesh's soulful "Yeh Mera Deewanapan". No one could guess that this song could be remixed!!

The camera work has been stunning in being able to capture the beauty of New York and Kolkata. Ramya, who lived in New York for many years was continuously baffled about what part of the city was being showed! The shots were stunning. Kolkata has always been famous as the city of joy and the camera work has captured the dizzy life of the city. We were left with the feeling of being home and wanting to visit Kolkata on our next trip to India :-)

As far as acting goes, Irrfan, Tabu and Kal Penn shine in their own right. Irrfan has played the sensitive role of a dad with aplomb. He doesn't push his son too hard to discover everything about life. He gives the gentle nudges required but then again gives his son the space that is required by children to discover life. Irrfan's scene where he has a long chat with Kal Penn was definitely very moving and brought out the value of being a dad, really well.

Tabu plays the role of a wife and mom in a way that probably only she could. She is shown to be a normal, everyday woman who loves her family like crazy and is deeply strong and powerful yet kind and gentle on the top. Aren't all our moms like that? :-) Yet, in the latter half of the movie she emerges as a brave woman who is out to balance and shoulder the responsibilities of the family. Her scenes in this part of the movie are sensitive and very moving.

Kal Penn has evolved a lot from playing the boorish college kid in "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle". There are shades of that at the beginning of the movie. He then gradually evolves to playing the confused kid in the middle of the movie making interesting decisions about his lifestyle and preferences. But where the really best part of his role emerges is towards the ending where he is forced to take a long look at life. He could have been a lot more human in his emotions but still manages to get the message across.

The rest of the cast is mostly ok and doesn't have much of screen time to make any impact. The movie running time is mostly ok, though it drags towards the end. The ending could have received some crisp editing.

That apart, its a fabulous movie ... a movie at the end of which, Ramya and I got into a long winded discussion about parents, parenting, immigrants and life in India. You'll surely would want to do that :-) We plan to send a gift of this DVD to our parents as soon as it releases ... this is one of the better tributes we could give to them, for the fine job they've done!