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The Namesake

Tuesday, February 19 at 7:00 p.m. (Shown in Boyd Hall 144)

India/USA, 2006, 122 min.

Director: Mira Nair           

Hindi & English

A couple coming to terms with living in a new culture discover their troubles are compounded by their son. Ashoke and Ashima are a young couple, brought together in an arranged marriage, soon leave Calcutta to seek their fortune in America. The couple learn to deal with the coolness and superficiality of life in New York, even as they revel in the opportunities the city offers them. Before long, Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, and pressed to choose a name, they dub the infant Nikhil, who soon picks up the nickname Gogol. By the time the child is old enough to attend school, Gogol displays little interest in his Indian heritage. Several years on, Gogol decides he wants to be called Nick and has become a thoroughly Americanized teenager, openly rebelling against his parents, smoking marijuana in his room, and dating Maxine, a preppy blonde from a wealthy family. Ashoke and Ashima are uncertain about how to deal with their son's attempts to cut himself off from their culture, but Nick begins expressing some uncertainty himself when he meets Moushumi, a beautiful girl who also comes from a family of Indian expatriates. (Mark Deming)