The Namesake
Friday, 30 Mar 2007 13:36
Tabu steals the show as Ashima while Irfan Khan turns in a solid performance as Ashok
Directed by Mira Nair, out March 30th at cinemas, starring Tabu, Irfan Khan, Kal Penn, running time 122 minutes.
In a nutshell…
Lyrical and melancholic 'long island iced chai'.
What's it all about?
A severe train crash in 1974 jolts Bengali, Ashok, into moving to New York. Once settled in one of the city's less glamorous outer boroughs, he and his wife Ashima name their newborn son after Ashok's literary hero, Nikolai Gogol.
Set in the check-in and departure lounge-riven world of a family strung between New York and old Calcutta (now officially Kolkata), Mira Nair's film tirelessly follows the highs and lows, as well as the loves and losses, of its three main characters.
Based on a novel of the same name by Jhumpa Lahiri, plot wise it's something of neverending soap opera – but the film is appropriately far removed from the melodrama of Bollywood.
Who's in it?
Irfan Khan turns in a solid performance as Ashok Ganguli (the father), while Kal Penn succeeds in relating the very different concerns of Gogol Ganguli (his son).
Both actors just about shake off an at-times stereotypical script – which frames Ashok as the 'benevolent' patriarch and Gogol as the inevitably headbanging second generation rock enthusiast.
Tabu steals the show, however, as Ashima Ganguli (the wife and mother). In her finely measured performance, the gradually accumulating silt of her character's world-weariness is palpable, while her depiction of a shock bereavement is a nothing less than a tour de force.
Zuleikha Robinson, meanwhile, excels as sassy Sorbonne seductress, Moushumi.
As an example…
Ashima to her Americanised son Gogol: "Don't call us guys!"
Gogol to his Bengali mother of barefooted rickshaw-wallas in Kolkata: "Being pulled by another human being is futile and exploitative and I don't want to be a part of that."
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
A great enthusiasm Stateside for softly softly Indian 'human interest' films (such as Deepa Mehta's Oscar-nominated Water) make this a distinct possibility. But the film's excessive length, as well as the absence of a single clear protagonist – or a 'start-middle-end' style plot – may pose a problem for western audiences.
What the others say
"The universal story of immigration and loss of one’s loved ones … is likely to strike a chord with Nair’s international audience" – Calcutta Telegraph
"The longing for roots of these displaced middle-class Indians lends a soulful undertow to a film conspicuously lacking in melodrama." – New York Times
So is it any good?
The Namesake is robustly acted; but its script fails to take Lahiri's novel by the scruff of the neck. Too many plot twists mean that at times the New York minute is in danger of losing out to the Kolkata catnap.
Inspired imagery, however – such as that which fuses Kolkata's Howrah Bridge with New York's George Washington bridge – captures the quiet stoicism of people whose sensibilities throb, suspended, between one part of the world and quite another.
You leave feeling you have got under the skin of, not just one protagonist – as with your average western film – but an intermeshing web of characters. This film is about an entire family, whose bonds are as unrelenting as the steel girders that hold up the Howrah-Washington bridge.
If that sounds a little wide-eyed and idealistic, it is – and here lies the key engineering fault in this otherwise worthy cinematic 'crossover'.
7/10
Jack Lamport
Agree with this review? Have a different opinion? Let us know your thoughts (without being too abusive to our poor reviewers please) and we'll post the best ones on the site.
Write your comments below: