The Namesake

I’ve liked all of Mira Nair’s films, so I had high expectations that this film did not fulfill. Its ultimate effect on me was as illustration for an absent text, rather than a film complete in itself. I have not read Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, but now I’ve seen the movie, and I’m not impressed. There are many good things in the film, but it did not engage me in any profound or sustained way. Pretty people and pretty places, mostly fine characterizations and well-tuned locations, but they just do not accumulate to any focused effect or affect. Bollywood stars Irrfan Khan and Tabu are excellent as a couple who, after an arranged marriage, emigrate from Bengal to the outer boroughs of New York, raising a family through the ’80s and ’90s. The story comes to rest on the slightly shaky shoulders of Kal Penn, who graduates from dope-smoking student (like his Kumar in quest of White Castle) to novice architect, and from a rich WASP princess to a not-so-nice girl from back home. In the process he tries to come to terms with his bifurcated heritage and to choose his real name, between the unlikely literary moniker his father gave him, Gogol, and a Hindu name that is conveniently Anglicized to Nick. The years (and relationships) zip by, and the parents do age convincingly, but it’s just one thing after another -- birth, death, love, grief -- that do not add up to any particular end. (2007, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-82.)