There is a great surprise in the heart of The Namesake: that Kal Penn can actually act as something other than a stoner. The movie becomes something a shambling bear by the end, but it has a poignancy that is a hallmark of the assured and gracious hand of director Mira Nair.
The movie tells two interwoven stories: that of Ashima (played by Tabu) who follows her husband from warm and supportive India to the Cold and lonely New York City and that of her son, Gogol, who grows up between the world of possibilities that America offers and the world of tradition represented by India.
They are both forced to learn how to find the world of support that is around them, but one they have never tapped into before, but their paths are going in different directions. Ashima has to learn the value of independence, while Gogol learns the value of family.
One of the saving graces of this movie is the long silences when the characters don’t talk to each other but manage to say everything. From love and joy to disappointment and frustration so much of this movie is communicated in it silences. These silences can show complicated and conflicting messages. As she did in Monsoon Wedding, Nair shows the culture clashes between traditional and modern life rather than have the characters talk about them.
Tabu plays the part of Ashima well. She shows how a cosmopolitan Indian girl goes from being self assured in his family to lonely and frightened in America. Through the movie she gradually regains that assurance in a subtle way so that in the end when she asserts her personality you can see how she’s grown into her new role as the head of the family.
Penn also shows his talent in a way that he could never have in the overly talky Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Unlike his mother, Gogol is comfortable in both the Indian world and the American one. While he is adept at living in both worlds, Gogol’s key frustration is clearly that everyone, both Indian and American try to define him as their stereotypical perception of what he should be.
The movie is a little rushed at the end with Gogol’s marriage but it also quietly reflects on the movie’s beginning and shows us how far these people have traveled.
As is frequently mentioned in the movie, Gogol is named after his father’s favorite Russian author. This movie made me want to read that author like few others have.