Home and away

A GORGEOUS, TRANSCENDENT FILM about identity, family and the immigrant dream, Mira Nair's The Namesake moves to the rhythms of two vastly different cultures. Working from Sooni Taraporevala's adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's crowded novel, Nair reaches into her own Indian heritage to visualize a story crammed with the conflict of cultural assimilation. Like all of Nair's films -- particularly Monsoon Wedding and Salaam Bombay! -- The Namesake overflows with the sounds, smells and colors of India, celebrating the messiness of life and its unique opportunities for rebirth and renewal. In Nair's hands, even tragedy is an occasion for jewel-bright flowers, blinding white saris and armfuls of golden bracelets.

Opening in 1977 Calcutta, the movie follows several generations of the Ganguli family through the eyes of newlyweds Ashoke and Ashima (Irfan Khan and Tabu). Moving to New York, Ashoke begins his studies in molecular biology while Ashima endures the cramped dampness of their tiny walkup. In these early scenes, Nair carefully contrasts the granite-grey vistas of Tribeca -- along with the cold skies and indifferent neighbors -- with the warmth and vibrancy of Ashima's former home, so that her alienation feels earned. When their first baby arrives, they name him Gogol (played as a teenager and young man by Kal Penn) -- a name whose rejection will come to symbolize the boy's feelings about his entire heritage.

For those dying to know if the star of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle can really act, the answer is yes. Wild-haired and sullen (his lower lip has the dimensions of a king-sized bed), Penn plays Gogol with a foot in both cultures: an Indian who loves his parents but is embarrassed by their behavior and rituals, and an American architecture student who doesn't quite fit in. In an act of defiant commingling, he takes a WASP girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) and buries himself for a while in her wealthy Manhattan family. Later he falls for a sultry Bengali with a Parisian gloss (Zuleikha Robinson, recently seen tormenting poor Titus Pullo on HBO's Rome), only to discover -- like so many of Nair's heroes and heroines -- that culture is no indicator of morality.

Though Gogol's travails dominate the narrative, the movie's most profound and revealing moments belong to his parents. A happily arranged marriage, their union is a barometer of cultural integration as they grow together and search for balance; and Indian film veterans Khan and Tabu deliver so many layers of emotion -- often without speaking -- their scenes together are nothing short of miraculous.

Crammed with the visual texture that makes Nair's films so consistently joyous, The Namesake is more interested in small epiphanies than large themes. Nevertheless, one of the film's greatest achievements (like the novel's) is to distinguish between the very different problems of first- and second-generation immigrants, letting backgrounds and cultural signifiers tell their own story. Again and again, the movie returns us to train stations and airports, following the family past shifting signs and destinations and identifying them as people unsteadily straddling two worlds.

Not until the end of The Namesake do we realize this lovely, graceful film -- like the family itself -- is held together by Ashima, upon whom the demands of kinship and the pain of exile are visited most affectingly. In the triumphant final scene, the woman whose name means "without borders" is at last permitted to reclaim the life she once abandoned.

The Namesake

Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn. Directed by Mira Nair.