Often, a movie comes to be identified with the immigrant experience of a specified ethnicity, but turns out to be accessible to any recent
“Wedding” went for the easy laugh and the easy tears – stocking its story with characters so one-dimensional that they were nearly caricatures and fabricating a clichéd story complete with a stock Hollywood happy ending. The movie was the Greek equivalent of the various Ivy League college application essays turned in by straight-A Asian-American high school seniors pontificating ad nauseum about the difficulties of bridging the gap between two cultures. From the very beginning, you knew exactly where the story was going to go. I could have left the room, and just by looking at my watch, told you what was happening in the story. “It’s been 20 minutes. The main character is currently seeking to break a minor traditional boundary and it’s going to lead to her meeting the Love Interest. In 15 more minutes, despite her efforts to keep the budding romance a secret, the cat will begin to get out of the bag.”
On the other hand, “Namesake” features subtlety, charm, and realism – and becomes all the more poignant and humorous as a result. Based on the highly acclaimed eponymous novel, “Namesake” does things so correctly that you only wish that it had come before “Wedding” so that the director and writers of the latter film could have taken notes. The only “typical” and “predictable” element comes when Gogol/Nikhil, as played by Kal Penn (aka Kalpen Modi) of “Harold & Kumar Go to
But I digress. The story in Namesake could have been my own, even though I’m Chinese and not Bengali, and the conflicts within have been shared by any number of first-generation Americans of non-white ethnicity—particularly those of Asian descent. But the way they’re brought to screen emphasize that you don’t have to hit the audience over the head with a mallet to communicate a point or an emotion.
This is seen in just about every scene involving Ashima Ganguli (played by the stunningly and sublimely excellent Tabu). When Ashima meets her intended as a young girl, we understand that she is nervous with just a few camera shots – one of her changing clothes beforehand, another as her future in-law asks her a simple question with no easy answer and she disarms them with an unarguable, quietly witty reply. Or when she looks out the window with little outward emotion while waiting for her young adult son to call as he promised – and of course, as all young men, he forgets. You understand, in a few seconds, the accepted hurt, forgiven before it can ever be asked or voiced.
Tabu is matched by the rest of the cast. Gogol’s journey as he tries to find the right balance between the Indian and American influences in his thinking, behavior and sense of self aren’t shown with glaringly colorful displays of histrionics. When he inadvertently hurts one of his parents, he’s aware of himself and tempers his behavior quite admirably. It’s just that both of his parents are old enough and perceptive enough to see—but not understand—the struggle inside of him.
There are no real, absolute villains. Gogol’s loutish, racist white classmates in one scene in the next scene four years later have learned better—celebrating high school graduation with Gogol by sharing an aforementioned joint. What better way to show the quintessential learning experience required of every true Asian American—finding a way to turn a bigot into a friend?
The whole movie is filled with scenes of such deftness, and I won’t ruin the revelatory experience of watching them by describing them here, except to note that the scenes in which Gogol dates a lovely, sweet white girl (played by Jacinda Barrett) are excellent. Each time poor Maxine was in the presence of the Ganguli parents, I cringed and winced at each well-intentioned, disastrous gaffe, and relived the experience of introducing one of my ex-girlfriends to my own parents. It’s interesting to note that, on screen and in real life, it seems far easier for an Asian American to get along with the parents of a white significant other that it is for the significant other to get along with the Asian-Am parents.
I especially liked the ending. Not a “happy ending,” but a “contented beginning.” There is a little bit of the bittersweet in how the film concludes, but even though you know that you’re about to stand up and leave the theater or turn the lights back on in your living room, you realize that Gogol’s about to finally start living completely on his own terms, as his own man. There’s no “… and they lived happily ever after” – but the possibility looms on the horizon.
