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Namesake, The
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Universal acclaim
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 50 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama | Romance
Written by:
Sooni Taraporevala
Jhumpa Lahiri (novel)
Directed by: Mira Nair
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 9, 2007
DVD: November 27, 2007
Running Time: 122 minutes, Color
Origin: India / USA
Language(s): Bengali / Hindi / English
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexuality/nudity, a scene of drug use, some disturbing images and brief language
Starring Kal Penn, Tabu, Irfan Khan, Jacinda Barrett, Glenne Headly, Linus Roache, and Daniel Gerroll
Spanning two generations, two clashing cultures and two very different ways of life that crash into each other only to become lovingly intertwined, The Namesake is ultimately about the imminently relevant question: what does it mean to be an American family? (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Amelia Monsoon Wedding Salaam Bombay! Vanity Fair
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Brims with intelligence, compassion and sensuous delight in the textures, sights and sounds of life--all the way from the Taj Mahal to Pearl Jam.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Nair takes mostly low-key material about a traditional Indian family raising kids in America and turns it into something sensual, funny and quietly devastating.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
The actors are all well-cast, thoughtful and sometimes funny. Tabu was apparently not Nair's first choice, but after watching her in the role it's hard to imagine anyone else -- she's heartbreakingly good.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Moving and marvelous new cross-cultural family saga.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The Namesake takes in a lot of territory, and at times is too diffuse, too attenuated. But the actors are so expressive that they provide their own continuity. They transport us to a realm of pure feeling.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Dennis Lim
Despite being rooted in knotty issues of identity, Lahiri's novel forgoes didacticism in favor of vivid portraiture. Nair and her uniformly superb cast take the same tack: The characters are individuals before they are emblems.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The Namesake, adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri’s popular novel, conveys a palpable sense of people as living, breathing creatures who are far more complex than their words might indicate.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton
Reminiscent of Jim Sheridan’s masterly "In America," The Namesake delivers such a tactile presence that it's difficult not to leave feeling as if you've just struggled through a New York winter, attended an Indian wedding, and returned from a Calcutta holiday.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It has been said that all modern Russian literature came out of Gogol’s “Overcoat.” In the same way, all of us came out of the overcoat of this same immigrant experience.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
A rarity, a film that preserves the depth and integrity of its source while bringing the story to life in an indelible way.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The Namesake has a deep, alluvial poetry to it, like a mighty river reaching the sea. It's mysterious and ordinary, insightful and banal, rambling and precise, and it is altogether unexpected.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
It's a tearjerker, sometimes, and sweetly funny at other moments. It's near perfect.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
An engaging and moving film with a universal story about the bonds of family as told through two generations of a Bengali family.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The acting is uniformly excellent. For the roles of Ashoke and Ashima, Nair has employed prolific Bollywood stars Tabu and Irfan Khan, both of whom give performances of great range and empathy.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Overall, this gorgeously designed and photographed movie artfully depicts the immigrant experience in ways that transcend its setting, melding Hollywood and Bollywood storytelling techniques to weave a tale a large audience will relate to.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A funny and touching adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri's novel about two generations of Bengali-Americans attempting to reconcile the world of their collective past with that of their individual futures.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
A thoroughly engaging, terrifically moving family story that's rich in beautifully observed and lovingly conveyed human detail.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This immensely pleasurable film is anything but dry. It's a saga of the immigrant experience that captures the snap, crackle and pop of American life, along with the pounding pulse, emotional reticence, volcanic colors and cherished rituals of Indian culture.
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
After trying her hand at Thackeray with "Vanity Fair," director Mira Nair has found a literary property much closer to her heart: Jhumpa Lahiri's best-selling novel about a Bengali couple and their children trying to find their place in American culture.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Although we miss some of the finer details that made Jhumpa Lahiri's 2003 book so meaningful, we're moved by the movie's themes of cultural displacement and the power of chance.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Making you feel the presence of absences - of the distant and the departed, of dreams that never quite come true - is the key thing that this uneven film gets exactly right.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It's well-acted and filled with striking compositions, but director Mira Nair has trouble with a different kind of balance.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This is a generational family saga everyone can relate to, and Nair gives it her special magic.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Showing the intricate dynamics of family relationships is something Mira Nair does as well as any director working today.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The Namesake is suffused with radiant grace, and manages to be old-fashioned yet immediate, epic and intimate.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
In her adaptation of The Namesake, Mira Nair hits it right at least half the time. In places, the movie feels aimless and misshapen; it doesn't have the gentle but focused energy of Lahiri's book. And sometimes Nair goes overboard in heightening the cultural contrasts -- the inevitable incongruities between East and West -- that Lahiri navigates so subtly.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
It's so courteously deferential to its source that it never really comes alive as a movie...Even so, Nair has a gift for directing actors and a feeling for the immigrant milieu of the novel that make The Namesake a rich, if not completely satisfying, pleasure.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
There are times when you wish the movie was a mini-series. This is meant both as a tribute, for the Ganguli family is so engaging you'd be happy spending much more time with them, and an acknowledgment that a tale this expansive doesn't always fit comfortably within the constraints of a feature-length frame.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
The Namesake carries faint echoes of the carnal physicality that makes Nair's more lightweight movies so much fun to look at--"Monsoon Wedding" was a dandy piece of froth, and "Vanity Fair" survives only on its looks--but it's a quieter, more mature work.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
It is hard to imagine a better cast or production values so the film should find audiences among sophisticated urban adults.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Stina Chyn
When The Namesake ends, one feels as though one has lived with the characters instead of just watching them.
Read Full Review >Empire Anna Smith
This Indian immigrant family saga is a pleasant watch, but given the emotive source novel, it’s surprisingly superficial.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Neil B gave it a5:
Too much plot, too little time. Worthy but a bit cheesy in places
Chet R gave it a9:
Nair is beginning to fulfill her promise by evolving into a major filmmaker in a very specialized niche.
C O gave it a5:
This movie covered too much ground in too little time. I never felt a palpable connection with the characters in the movie besides the father and mother. The scenes regarding the son seemed trite and irrelevant to the plot. I feel like the movie should have focused more on the racial issues than just mere glimpses (i.e. the mailbox graffiti). The classroom scene where Kal Penn first makes his appearance was horrible. My guess is that they wanted to depict to what extent Kal's character lamented his name but the scene never really grabbed me. It fell into the category of a B teen movie. The filming locations were beautiful but the plot hardly matched.
Nathan R gave it a5:
If you want a much better story about the conflict and struggle to adapt between immigrants and their first generation children, watch/read the Joy Luck Club. I echo Andrew K. in that the movie tried to cover too much, and in the end, felt twice as long as the 2+ hours it really is. When you can surmise the message of a movie within the first 10 minutes of watching it, it makes you wonder what the next two hours are for.
Jennifer gave it a10:
The movie is very rich and satisfying. The picture was beautifully laid out and captivating the entire time. A reviewer below said the book is better than the movie. I’m going to have to get that book because the movie was fantastic.
sfdafsa dsfsa gave it a10:
Excellent movie. Not as good as book though.
Thomas H. gave it a9:
Probably the best movie out this year! Great cast, with terrific Indian scenery. The best part is the message about foreigners trying to assimilate into a new culture, and the desire to keep traditions. This is the must-see movie of the year!
