A woman wakes up on a cold freezing and bleak New York morning. She has just moved here from Calcutta after marrying a man in an arranged marriage who, as she says, was the “best of the lot”. After shyly waving him goodbye through the window she rummages in the cupboard and finds some cornflakes. A pure Bengali, born and bred, she pours some of it in a bowl and then, as only a Bengali can do, proceeds to add some chilly powder and some nuts to make a quick fix meal of ‘jhal-muri’.

Such subtle insights are what make The Namesake a truly wonderful movie experience. At its very core it is also a very emotional story with 3 very natural and pitch-perfect performances as its anchor.

When I first read The Namesake, I was sure that, as beautiful as it was it wasn’t a ‘filmable’ movie. There were lots of passages in the book which were just ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’. As fond as I am of Ms. Nair, I was not sure of how she would film the silences. The other book I felt this way about was Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss”. Ms. Nair has done such a wonderful job of filming this movie and I can’t wait for someone else to film the Desai novel.

Tabu, Irfan and Kal Penn are all wonderfully human and perform with utmost conviction. Kal Penn in particular is a revelation, especially since the only film I’ve seen of his is the goofy “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle”

There is also a small character role of Ms. Moushami Majumdar who is initially a geeky snob who says things like “I detest American television” but grows up to be quite a seductive vamp and its played to perfection by a fabulous Zuleikha Robinson. She not only looks hot, but spouts bits of French and like the French she also manages to have an extra marital affair. In short she has about 10 mins of screen time but she blazes the screen with her presence including a remixed cabaret-cum-striptease rendition of the old classic “Yeh Mera Dewanapan Hai” on her wedding night.

For most of us raised on a diet of Bollywood movies which are loud and dramatic with heightened emotions and music score to match (which by the way is not meant as a negative) this movie might seem a little ‘slow’. But bear with it for the first 15 min and you will be richly rewarded.

For all of us, who think of ourselves as wonderfully modern and independent, this movie makes us go back and appreciate our parents all over again. And that is its greatest strength.

As the film’s tagline goes….

“Sometimes The Greatest Journeys Are Those That Bring You Home”

Welcome Home!