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| Review: 'Namesake' is clumsy chapter for Nair (B-) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| March 22, 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Ask Mira Nair. The India-born, Harvard-educated filmmaker has always taken full advantage of her bicontinental background, exploring themes — interracial romance with Denzel Washington in “Mississippi Masala” (1991), sexual gamesmanship in “Kama Sutra” (1996) — that often rankle traditional palates back home. Nair continues her intercultural odyssey with “The Namesake,” a sincere, novelistic adaptation of an award-winning novel (by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri) that celebrates the persistence of culture in all its many vessels — even when the vessel is a smirking, pot-smoking ingrate who neglects his dear mother. That would be Gogol (Kal Penn), an Ivy League-bound Queens teenager who understands little of his heritage and, frankly, isn’t interested. As far as Gogol is concerned, the Ganguli family history began when engineering student Ashoke brought his young bride, Ashima (Bollywood star Tabu), over from Calcutta in the late 1970s. Gogol isn’t all that thrilled with the name “Gogol,” either. Christened by his father, a staunch admirer of the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, the lad regards the name as just another reminder of his “otherness.” “Why that writer?” he grouses to his friends while ripping a joint. “Why couldn’t I have been Anton or Vladimir?” Little does Gogol know that his father harbors a painful, long-held secret — something to do with a train wreck, a copy of “The Overcoat” and the manifest destiny of the Ganguli family. Khan gives a sharp, generously moving performance as Ashoke, whose transcendent love for his child is the pillar around which screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala constructs her sprawling, three-decade-long saga. Still, a streak of artlessness pervades “The Namesake,” particularly in the way director Nair dismisses Gogol’s upper-crust white girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett). Initially sweet and nonjudgmental, Barrett’s character conveniently reveals a vain, selfish side just when Gogol reaches “that point” in his character arc. It doesn’t help that Penn — the “Van Wilder” party boy, here in a rare dramatic role — seems overmatched by the material. He’s perfectly convincing with a joint in his mouth; discovering his inner Indianness, not so much. >> Rated PG-13 (sexuality/nudity, a scene of drug use, some disturbing images and brief language), 122 minutes. Grade: B- Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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