Ashoke Ganguli: Not at all. You remind me of everything that followed. Everyday since then has been a gift... Gogol.
Powerful but a bit disappointing. One thing you can definitely not say about Mira Nair's coming-of-age tale 'The Namesake' is that it is filled with bad performances. Every actor in their role is near-perfect. Kal Penn whom you may dismiss as a bad actor because of his previous roles in such films as Van Wilder and Harold and Kumar, shows some amazing range here and gives an emotionally-charged dramatic performance as Gogol. Irrfan Khan is excellent as Gogol's father but the real-standout is Tabu as Gogul's mother who strikes all the right chords with her exquisite performance.
I walked into this movie expecting something sappy but I got something else. 'The Namesake' isn't sappy at all it's at times painfully realistic and sad, and anything but contrived. It's an original and exciting story, but it has some serious pacing problems. My only huge complaint with the film is it's pacing can be extremely slow at several times. This detracts from the mostly good qualities the film has to offer. I feel the conclusion would be a lot more powerful if not for the slow pacing especially during the first half of the film.
All in all, I recommend 'The Namesake' to anyone wanting to see something new, different and relevant. Grade: B
Powerful but a bit disappointing. One thing you can definitely not say about Mira Nair's coming-of-age tale 'The Namesake' is that it is filled with bad performances. Every actor in their role is near-perfect. Kal Penn whom you may dismiss as a bad actor because of his previous roles in such films as Van Wilder and Harold and Kumar, shows some amazing range here and gives an emotionally-charged dramatic performance as Gogol. Irrfan Khan is excellent as Gogol's father but the real-standout is Tabu as Gogul's mother who strikes all the right chords with her exquisite performance.
I walked into this movie expecting something sappy but I got something else. 'The Namesake' isn't sappy at all it's at times painfully realistic and sad, and anything but contrived. It's an original and exciting story, but it has some serious pacing problems. My only huge complaint with the film is it's pacing can be extremely slow at several times. This detracts from the mostly good qualities the film has to offer. I feel the conclusion would be a lot more powerful if not for the slow pacing especially during the first half of the film.
All in all, I recommend 'The Namesake' to anyone wanting to see something new, different and relevant. Grade: B