Hello Everyone, This is our 1st blog ever and we figured one of the best places to start a discussion is…’WOOD’…Bolly or Holly!! Or better yet the growing presence of Bollywood in Hollywood. We have seen a dramatic increase in interest over the last few years. The latest addition being ‘Namesake’. It was one of the movies, I just couldn’t wait for the DVD — partly for the sake of showing my support, my curiosity (even though I had read the book and the reviews raved about it) and most important, I wanted to see what kinds of people were watching the movie. Needless to say, the movie was a great adaptation of the book. If they had portrayed the exact story, they would have lost the audience right in the beginning. The depth of the characters in the book was deeper while in the movie they gave every character good weightage.
Kal Penn was great…..after watching him in ‘Harold and Kumar’ and some other movies of similar caliber, I wasn’t too sure how or if he would do justice to Gogol. But I have to say…I really liked him in the movie. He grows on you and by the end of the movie you can feel his pains and sorrows. Tabu was the other major contributor to the film’s success. I am proud of her and how she, as a mother, handled everything. The accent made me cringe at times but then….it was also very adorable and very real. I can’t not say anything about Irfaan Khan….he was good and managed to hold his own. A lot of the things in the movie were very true to life and only something that we, “South Asians” can relate to….and after having seen the movie, I still wonder what the “non South-Asian” audience got out of it. I loved it mostly because I could relate to a lot of things (too embarrassed to admit to them). I enjoyed the movie and would love to hear what you have to say about it.
I enjoyed this movie very much and had read the book also. It is a great book. Thank You for writing this great article about the same.
I am part of the “non South Asian” audience and I LOVED this movie. I really felt for the characters and got a sense of what it must be like to come to such a “foreign” land! I have a lot of South Asian friends and am always so glad that they (or their parents) took the very brave and bold step to come to North America!
wonderful adaptation of Jhumpa lahiri’s award winning book. Performances by Tabu, Irfan khan and Kalpenn were superb.
That movie hit home for me in a way I didn’t anticipate. Although it was my grandparents that did the immigrating to the US, and my immediate family was well enveloped in suburban-American culture, we never totally fit into the neighborhood the way the Anglo kids did. Our emotions were always too big, or our food was not the same, or the music wasn’t the same, etc. Although, The Namesake was illustrating a much wider cultural divide, I recognized the similarities – unmistakable.