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Well, there is one thing: wait for Gogol to change his mind. As a young man, Gogol—no, call him Nikhil, or better still, just plain Nick—can't believe his parents named him after some frustrated, depressed, paranoid, friendless Ukrainian writer. "Did you guys know all this stuff when you named me after him?"

Director Mira Nair and Tabu on the set

Ashoke has personal reasons for his attachment to the writer, who spent most of his life outside his native Ukraine, and in particular to his celebrated short story "The Overcoat" (which happens to include an early aside justifying the seemingly unlikely and idiosyncratic name of its protagonist). Trying to explain all this to his son, Ashoke quotes a line often attributed to Dostoyevsky. "We all came from Gogol's 'Overcoat,'" he says, adding, "One day you will understand."

For a long time Gogol doesn't want to understand. His name is as pointless and irrelevant as his parents' old-world customs and traditions; they have nothing to do with him. But then comes an incalculably momentous event of the sort that demands a ritual response, and Gogol finds that he has nothing else to fall back on, nothing that will answer but what has been always done at such times by all Bengali families. It's one of the film's most touching moments, and it brings tears to his mother's eyes. "You didn't have to do that," she says when she sees him, but he knows he did. Later, there is a different sort of impromptu ritual in which Gogol unknowingly recapitulates his mother's first moment of contact with her future husband, slipping his feet into a pair of shoes.

At the end of its 122 minutes, perhaps, few if any of the story's various partial threads have really been resolved. Open-ended and somewhat scattered, the film is generally engaging but feels elusively incomplete. One could say it is about the journey rather than the destination.

A more disciplined approach to the screenplay might have distilled Lahiri's 300-page novel into something more satisfyingly focused. Instead, frequent Nair collaborator Sooni Taraporevala chooses to sketch in and gesture at as much of the book as possible, trusting viewers to supply the rest.

The result is perhaps a rare adaptation that works better the more familiar one is with the source material. Most adaptations compete with their source material, so that the stronger one feels about the original work, the more conflicted one feels about the adaptation. The Namesake may be best enjoyed by viewers most able to connect the dots and fill in the gaps wherever Lahiri's creation hasn't quite made it to the screen.

Talk About It

1. What does Gogol's "Overcoat" signify to Ashoke? How does Gogol's understanding of the name change as the story progresses? When Ashoke tells Gogol, "One day you will understand," does Gogol come to understand? What is it that he comes to understand, and how and when does he come to understand it?
2. How does the film approach the differences between Indian and American culture? Does it favor one over the other? If so, how? Which does it see positive things in? Which is it critical of? What are some specific examples?
3. Gogol's parents' heritage and background is broadly Hindu, while Gogol embraces a culture that is historically more influenced by Christianity than any other faith. Do historic religious differences at all come into play in the film, indirectly or otherwise? If so, how?
4. How do Gogol's parents feel about his first girlfriend Max? To what extent are their concerns or misgivings founded? To what extent are they not? Do the cultural differences between Gogol and Max matter? If so, how?
5. Compare Gogol's parents' understanding of love and marriage with those of Gogol and the women in his life. What if anything is missing in the older generation's understanding? What is missing in the younger generation's?

The Family Corner

The Namesake is rated PG-13 for sexuality/nudity, a scene of drug use, some disturbing images and brief language. The film includes a number of marital and non-marital—and non-explicit—sexual encounters, with one brief instance of female rear nudity, a few crude words, and disaster-type footage of the aftermath of a deadly train crash.

Photos © Copyright Fox Searchlight

© Steven D. Greydanus subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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