Sandeep

I was fortunate to see The Namesake earlier this week and hear Mira Nair speak about her passion for this film, and the relationships in it.

I enjoyed the movie, and related to many scenes in the film as an Indian American. There were so many subtleties which were quite powerful. I wonder though if the film will be relateable to a non-Indian audience. After the film, which was screened for an American Hollywood crowd, the most common phrase I heard while waiting for the valet to bring my car was "I really want to visit India." The scenery in the film was great, but the story of the characters were assumably what she was aiming to tell.

I think the way she describes arranged marriages above is beautiful, and you can see in the film, the deep bond and love that is developed between the characters. This love is contrasted to the love marriage later in the film of their son, Gogul, played by Kal Penn.

Would love to hear what people thought of the film. And, the book - which I have not read.

Mallika

Ok, I googled The Namesake after writing my comment above to read reviews, and found an article that summarized many of the reviews. Glad to see that the larger public is indeed connecting to this film. Congratulations Mira Nair!

The New York Times said the film 'conveys a palpable sense of people as living, breathing creatures who are far more complex than their words might indicate.'

'The story of upwardly mobile immigrants torn between tradition and modernity as they are absorbed into the American melting pot has been told in countless movies. This variation is gentle and compassionate. The longing for roots of these displaced middle-class Indians lends a soulful undertow to a film conspicuously lacking in melodrama.'

'Its steady, unhurried pace, its fascination with the rituals of daily life and its deep respect for characters who are continually evolving lift 'The Namesake' above high-end soap opera. It may lack epic grandeur, but by the end you feel you know these people well enough to keep in step with their internal rhythms,' it said.

The Los Angeles Times said, 'Mira Nair has repeatedly enacted tales of culture clash in her films but never with quite as much warmth and thoughtfulness as she brings to 'The Namesake.'

'Coming off a botched literary adaptation - the garbled, proto-feminist take on William Makepeace Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' - she turns her attention to a novel that is not only more manageably scaled but also, for this expatriate filmmaker, surely closer to home.'

'Despite being rooted in knotty issues of identity, Lahiri's novel forgoes didacticism in favour of vivid portraiture. Nair and her uniformly superb cast take the same tack: The characters are individuals before they are emblems,' it said.

Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman said, 'When a director is as humane as Mira Nair, it's easy to think of her gift as the 'simple' ability to bathe everyone on screen in a glow of understanding.'

'Nair's work is certainly empathic (and also funny and sexy and rueful), yet watching The Namesake, her moving and marvellous new cross-cultural family saga, I was struck by the nearly sculptural skill with which she expresses that spirit.'

Variety said, 'Bolstered by Nair's lush visual style and superb performances from ace Bollywood thesps Irrfan Khan, Tabu and 'Harold and Kumar' star Kal Penn (in his first dramatic lead), Fox Searchlight can expect above-average arthouse business for this audience-pleasing March release.'

'Penn-who has long seemed one of the brightest and most likable young comic talents around-shows serious dramatic chops as he takes us on Nick/Gogol's expansive odyssey from the proverbial American-Born Confused Desi to a confident young man with a sure sense of his past, his present and his future,' it said.

Newsday said, Nair and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala, 'who have lavished affectionate detail upon this adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's bestselling novel, reassert the power of the personal and the specific to speak to the greatest number of hearts.'

'The actors are so engaging and the settings often so seductive, we pleasurably submit to what is essentially a two-hour penance for all the hurt and wrongs one has ever inflicted upon one's parents. 'The Namesake' may be the loveliest guilt trip you will ever take,' it said.

Premiere found the film 'a thoroughly engaging, terrifically moving family story that's rich in beautifully observed and lovingly conveyed human detail.'

The New York Post said, '...this gorgeously designed and photographed movie artfully depicts the immigrant experience in ways that transcend its setting, melding Hollywood and Bollywood storytelling techniques to weave a tale a large audience will relate to.'

'Penn's charismatic, loose-limbed work as the confused Gogol helps Nair avoid the earnestness that afflicts so many films of this kind, and he's quite capable of handling the big dramatic moments as well. You don't have to be Indian to love 'The Namesake,' it said.

New York Daily News found the film 'suffused with radiant grace, and manages to be old-fashioned yet immediate, epic and intimate.'

And 'metroblog: movies' called it 'a labour of love by a talented filmmaker; if only Nair had adopted a less-is-more approach to her adaptation, her very good film might have been a great one.'