The Namesake

So I'm unemployed in case you didn't know... and if I didn't already see enough movies, I definitely am now. Today I saw The Namesake starring Kal Penn as Gogol, a young Indian American son of immigrant parents struggling to tear away from their traditional cultural values, yet eventually coming to terms with his place in the world and their importance to him. I won't recap the plot, as you can read that elsewhere.

Overall the film seemed to try to cover a little too much time, eventually feeling a bit disjointed, but when it was effective, it was very effective. The actors who play his parents were shown in perhaps a 25 year time span. They aged with the use of makeup, hair alteration, and wardrobe changes, and pulled it off very effectively. I really appreciated them a lot.

Sadly, a few of the other characters were a little thinly portrayed. I found myself very engaged in the subject matter for most of the movie, but sadly in an effort to span Gogol's entire life, the movie offered a few less than stellar moments with some fairly boring interjections.

I recommend the movie on it's efforts to draw out the way a family can be sometimes stretched thin because of cultural and generational differences. These were especially vivid thru the eyes of an immigrant family coming to the United States in the late 70's from India. Sadly the film as a whole fell just a bit short of it's promising premise in an effort to do just a bit too much.