| (dir. Mira Nair, 2006) in Bengali, Hindi, and English; 122 min.; Rated PG-13 (for sexuality/nudity, a scene of drug use, some disturbing images and brief language)
Friday, June 22 @ 8:00 pm
Saturday, June 23 @ 5:30 pm
Official site:
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thenamesake/
|
| “Cultural assimilation is a specialty for Mira Nair, the India-born, Manhattan-based director who found the right balance in Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding and soars with her film version of Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake . In Calcutta, circa the 1970s, Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) agree to an arranged marriage and to starting their new lives in Manhattan. It's a struggle. The birth of their son, Nikhil, who is given the pet name Gogol, after the Russian author Ashoke reveres, intensifies the cultural clash. The grown Gogol, played with ferocity and feeling by Kal Penn, of Harold and Kumar fame, turns his back on everything Indian, and not just by taking up with a blond socialite (Jacinda Barrett). Gogol has identity problems, not solvable when he leaves the blonde for the Bengali beauty Moushumi (a zesty Zuleikha Robinson)....”
|
