The Namesake review

DVD of the week – Jhumpa Lahiri has won the Pulitzer Prize for her exceptionally charming and detailed writing, so transporting her best-selling novel to the silver screen was never going to come without high expectations.

While some ‘based-upon-the-novel’ movie conversions fail to do justice to their literary beginnings, The Namesake blends a profound respect for author Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling book with a touch of cinematic class.

Meandering seamlessly through four decades of average people’s lives, exploring themes of cultural identity, love and tragic loss, Director Mira Nair’s (Vanity Fair, Monsoon Wedding) film adaptation, like Lahiri’s much-lauded first novel, is a subtly charming, closely observed saga of one immigrant Bengali family’s life in America.

Focusing largely on the son of the Ganguli family, Gogol (Kal Penn), we watch as he grows-up torn between his desire to live an American life and his parents’ dream that he honour his Indian heritage. With slight adaptations to the plot, viewers who haven’t read Lahiri’s novel are in danger of feeling a little lost at times, as Gogol’s formative years are skimmed over, which isn’t helped by Kal Penn’s unconvincing performance as a teenager – though he more than makes up for it in adulthood.

Gogol’s father Ashoke (Irfan Khan) also comes into his own during the later years, forming an integral part of the heartfelt story, not to mention finally revealing why Gogol received his peculiar name. Gogol’s mother Ashima (Tabu) is strong throughout and the leading role in a film featuring a handful of familiar faces on the Bollywood circuit, with the plot unraveling with her move from her closed-knit family life in Calcutta to the loneliness of her existence in New York with her arranged-marriage husband.

Nair has taken the original story and merged it with her own experience as an Indian living in the States – relocating the narrative from Lahiri’s Boston to her own background in Queens and suburban New York. The comparisons drawn between the vividly-coloured Calcutta and bustling Manhattan cityscape are dramatic, but not all of Nair’s adaptations benefit the story.

The complex character of Gogol’s love interest Moushumi (played by a poorly cast Zuleikha Robinson) is dealt with all too superficially, while his girlfriend Maxine (averagely played by Jacinda Barrett) doesn’t begin to hint at the cultural divide or comparisons between Gogol’s Bengali background and the white all-American family he so desperately wants to feel a part of – which the book excels at.

While Nair’s work at times fails to explore the deeper story soaked into the pages of its literary precursor – with some major omissions fans of the book would expect to receive more attention, not to mention a budget visualisation of a dramatic event in Ashoke’s life – she does bring something new to the story in the form of welcome closure.

Overall The Namesake is an accomplished work, and a fitting release in line with the current celebrations surrounding India’s 60 years of independence. It is, furthermore, an insightful exploration into Bengali immigrant culture and, like the book it is based upon, won’t fail to bring a tear to your eye. And if it inspires a few more people to pick-up Jhumpa Lahiri’s captivating novel – then so much the better.

Film: The Namesake
Directed by: Mira Nair
Starring: Tabu, Irfan Khan, Kal Penn and Sahira Nair
Classification: 12
Release date: 30 July 2007
Available from: Amazon from £12.50

James Fryer
30 July 2007