The Namesake

In The Namesake, Irfan Khan is brilliant.

Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan) brings his new wife (Ashima, played by Tabu) to a cold New York flat. Jhumpa Lahiri's book (I am told) tells the story of two generations through the life of Gogol Ganguli, Ashoke and Ashima's first son. Deviating from this, Mira Nair's movie is mostly about Ashima. Despite all this, Irfan Khan steals everyones thunder. He plays the Bengali-academic-in-America to perfection. Firstly, he gets the accent right - something Tabu has difficulty with. Kal Penn is decent as Gogol, but only just. In romatic scenes, he seems to be out of his depth - with neither of his relationships evoking any real chemistry.

But do see the movie, if only for Irfan and Tabu, a host of extremely funny Bengalis of all sorts and some really touching scenes which portray ABCD equations with much more sensitivity than any movie since 2000. Including Bend it like Beckham.