Mira Nair’s adaptation of the Jhumpa Lahiri novel about an Indian family’s assimilation into America accomplishes what many fact-based biopics fail to do. The picture gives us a sense of someone’s full, lived life. It takes the telling of two lives, though, for the movie to do so. The Namesake begins with Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu), who marry as strangers and immediately leave India for the United States. They nurture a tender, patient love – both actors are riveting in their unspoken bravery – and eventually have two children for whom India is but a distant land full of strange traditions and anonymous relatives. When Gogol, the older child, becomes a teenager, the story shifts its focus onto him. And though Kal Penn never quite matches the emotional weight that Khan and Tabu bring to the film, the movie still nicely connects Gogol’s journey with his father’s, making this a story of self-discovery that comes full circle.
