The Namesake
Grade: B

Jhumpa Lahiri's popular novel about an Indian-American family has jhumped to the big screen courtesy of director Mira Nair. It's nowhere near as good as Nair's brilliant family drama Monsoon Wedding, but it does have a lot going for it. Irfan Khan delivers a subtle and extremely moving performance as Ashoke, the father who names his son after the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Model-turned actress Tabu matches his intensity note for note, and Kal Penn (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) is serviceable - but not particularly memorable- as Gogol. Some of the supporting performances are god-awful, however, and the last half hour clunks along like soup cans dangling from the back of a car. Getting back to the pluses, there are some breathtaking shots of the Taj Mahal early on.