Director:		Mira Nair
Year:		2007
Language:		English with some dialogue in Hindi and Bengali
Time:		122 minutes
Rated:		PG-13

Mira Nair was the director of the popular 2001 film, "Monsoon Wedding." Her latest film, "The Namesake," adapted from the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, follows Gogol, the American-born son of Indian immigrants, through the trials of adolescence, compounded by culture clash. He wants to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers. His family wants him to maintain their traditional ways.

Nair says she shot the film as if Calcutta and New York were one city "because that's what it feels like to be between worlds. The kind of in-between thing that Ashoke and Ashima (Gogol's parents) feel in their soul, being in New York, thinking of Calcutta. But as Gogol enters their world, I think the film becomes less nostalgic and much more about the present."

Links

Interview with director and cast members

A sampling of reviews

Other background on the film