the namesake

the namesake was directed by mira nair (vanity fair, monsoon wedding). it is an adaptation from the novel by jhumpa lahiri, and follows the story of gogol, a young man born in america to indian immigrants. the film is essentially about leaving one’s homeland and assimilating in a new country with entirely different cultural codes and beliefs, all the while attempting to instill a sense of heritage into children born outside of this culture. i found that the film was effective at establishing how frightening and lonely it would be to leave home through the character of ashima, gogol’s mother. we are aligned with her as she enters into an arranged marriage with ashoke and he brings her to america where he is working on his phd. i was completely drawn into the first half of the film as it followed the story of gogol’s parents immigrating to america and establishing their life there. however, there is a noticeable shift when the alignment of the film switches to gogol (kal penn) and his difficulties being an indian american, desperate to discard his heritage and be just an american. we start with gogol at his highschool graduation where he is getting high with friends and then must go home to visit with family friends. we see him traveling between his two worlds and the familiarity with both, but we also see how he clearly resents his parents for expecting him to celebrate his indian heritage. this shift of identification in the film causes it to feel like a completely different genre. when we were with ashima, i felt like i was watching a carefully paced and executed indian film, and when we our brought forward to gogol’s teen years, i suddenly felt like i was watching a teen movie meant for kal penn’s harold and kumar fans. i found his character very annoying during this period of the film because we see him rejecting his parents over and over as they patiently try to explain to him about his culture. i think part of this frustration comes from the fact that we’ve been aligned with the parents up until this point and all of a sudden we are thrown an obnoxious teenager who wants nothing to do with them, but also from the fact that I don’t think kal penn is a great actor. i never really believed him as a teenager, nor was he convincing as he got older. i don’t think kal penn should be blamed entirely for this odd change in the mood of the film; it also felt like maybe the filmmakers needed to edit it quickly and tried to rush a lot of the second half of the film. there are several important plot points that get fast forwarded through and almost glazed over; whereas everything in the first half was given great attention. an example of this contrast would be when we first see ashima and ashoke, there is a scene where ashima is about to meet her soon-to-be husband and she is trying on his shoes in the hallway. there is so much time spent on watching her put these shoes on and model them as she considers what america will be like. conversely, in the second half we are shown gogol’s relationship with maxine (jacinda barrett), ashima’s death, the breakup of gogol and maxine, his subsequent relationship with moushumi (zuleikha robinson), her infidelity, their breakup, and the conclusion of the film. because of this rushed conclusion, i was taken out of the film and found it really hard to believe many of the characters’ actions.

watch the trailer