Biographical films often stumble precisely because they try to cover an entire lifetime. The viewer finds it disorienting when multiple actors play one and the same person during childhood, teenage years, adulthood and old age. Just when you have gotten used to a person and learned enough to feel a connection with her, a new actor severs the emotional tie you have developed to the character. Compressing a lifetime into 120 minutes makes it difficult to cover any period in sufficient detail that you feel you learned enough about the character to understand his or her actions. The Namesakesolves these challenges by only covering the first 30 years of Gogol’s life and by giving his parents, who are always played by same actors, equal standing in the film. The trailer for the film gave no hint that The Namesake is a marvelous film about the challenges of growing up in America as second-generation Indian immigrants.  The film will be appeal beyond the large Indian immigrant community because the screenplay is based on a book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Jhumpa Lahiri) who has a sharp eye and vivid imagination.  I was so impressed with the story that I will buy Lahiri’s collection of short stories for which she received the Pulitzer Prize.

The film will be appeal beyond the large Indian immigrant community because the screenplay is based on a book by a Pulitzer Prize winning author (Jhumpa Lahiri) who has a sharp eye and vivid imagination.  I was so impressed with the story that I will buy Lahiri