The Namesake

[Dialectic]

Starring Kumar, baby! Now they just have to make one starring me.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/thenamesake/trailer/

[ellencho]

Wow, he's come a long way since the married to pot scene in H&K.

[silkie]

Saw it last night at a premiere, and I definitely recommend it to people.
It takes a pretty straightforward route in what's essentially a discover your roots movie, but at the same time it is not as explicitly tied to the charcter's ethnicity in the movie's ending.

It is definitely heart felt, and I am sure a lot of posters here (including me) can identify with Kal Penn's character's transition from a self-hating punk to someone who is beginning to get a grasp of themselves.

Anyways, go check it out.

[minbo]

I have not seen the movie, just read the book. While there is some element of "discover your roots" in the book, I thought that there was a lot more about how children do not know their parents, prior to the children becoming sentient, and how parents never really get their children when they grow up in a dis-similar childhood environment. It was a great book...

[minbo]

I saw it last night and I really liked it. Of course as an adaptation, the book was better, but that was mainly due to time constraints of the movie, not being able to fully develop some stories and characters. Something that my friend noted was that none of the characters in the book or the movie were strong and decisive. When people did make the small decisions that did come up, often it turned out semi-tragic. Aside from the initial decision to see the world, nobody ever made any major decisions that shaped their lives, they all just reacted to life as it came by them. Lastly, Kumar did not look like a high school student at all.

[silkie]

I saw it last night and I really liked it. Of course as an adaptation, the book was better, but that was mainly due to time constraints of the movie, not being able to fully develop some stories and characters. Something that my friend noted was that none of the characters in the book or the movie were strong and decisive. When people did make the small decisions that did come up, often it turned out semi-tragic. Aside from the initial decision to see the world, nobody ever made any major decisions that shaped their lives, they all just reacted to life as it came by them. Lastly, Kumar did not look like a high school student at all.

I am glad you liked it. Pretty interesting read about people's decision making. Are you implying that the indecisiveness only happens in the book, or in the movie also. I have to rack my memory to find examples of this myself.

But isn't it great that this movie is as much about the parents as the kids? I think the mother and father has the best on-screen chemistry I have seen in years. It definitely makes me realize what a colossal undertaking for my mother to drop everything and move to a different country with 2 kids, although she has it easier since her family is here.

[minbo]

Lack of personal initiative is in both the movie and the book... They do make small decisions as life comes at them, but you never get the feeling that anyone is really motivated to do anything but simply exist (hopefully happily) and coast through life. Then again, that is probably how a lot of people actually exist. Not to go into details and spoilers, but Gogol deciding to change his name and become an architect were the ONLY decisions he made decisively and relatively independently from external stimulus, and they were fairly small decisions.

And I did like the parents in the movie. Within the confines of acceptable expressions of affection for their social customs, they still were able to conveyed extraordinarily well that they cared deeply for each other.

[nskripchun]

I saw this movie a couple nights ago and wanted to echo everyone else's recommendation.

For myself, what I found most striking was the disconnection between the parents and the kids, and how the movie portrayed the disconnection as something that "just happened" due to different upbringing/environment rather than some sort single, dramatic event. It makes the "resolution" at the end, where everyone seems to come full circle, all the more meaningful.

Sidenote:

The scene with the family friends bringing over their "daughter" to meet Golgol was hilarious and reminded me of my own childhood, how my parents would bring over their Chinese friends and encourage me to be "friends" with their sometimes socially awkward children.

[silkie]

The scene with the family friends bringing over their "daughter" to meet Golgol was hilarious and reminded me of my own childhood, how my parents would bring over their Chinese friends and encourage me to be "friends" with their sometimes socially awkward children.


HAHA!
yeah, and the "just be friends" speech afterwards. My parents tried that on me plenty of times, when they would just drop me a phone number and say, "call this girl, she just got to NYC and needs people to know."

"Fuck no. YOU call her. Last time I got dupped into playing 'host,' it turns out the chic has been living in the city for 3 years!"

[Ike]

I haven't seen The Namesake, so I don't know what scene you're talking about. But some of my parents' friends' children (actually they're more of my grandparents' friends' grandchildren - we have this tri-generational thing going on) have become my closest friends, so it's not ALWAYS a disaster. That said, I'm socially awkward, so maybe that's why it worked. =)

[Dialectic]

Just posted an article by The Economist that refers to this movie and shows a remarkable appreciation for the immigrant experience:
http://www.thefighting44s.com/archives/2007/03/28/party-girl/

I really like the line about how immigrants will no longer endure any humiliation.

[JadeDragon]

You posted the wrong link. :P

http://www.thefighting44s.com/archives/2007/03/28/american-idiocracy/

[silkie]

Just posted an article by The Economist that refers to this movie and shows a remarkable appreciation for the immigrant experience:
http://www.thefighting44s.com/archives/2007/03/28/party-girl/

I really like the line about how immigrants will no longer endure any humiliation.

Thanks for the article.
I definitely see how the immigration process also embodies a sense of humiliation, particularly if the immigrant is from a country that is considered inferior from the standpoint of the people in the adopted countries.

For example, it seems the American majority instinctively hazes someone if they detect that person is not accustomed to the local culture. This goes the same for the way some Hong Kong locals treats mainland immigrants, etc.

As the article points out, one of the saddest thing about this event is that the immigrant parents often receives the same treatment at home from their offsprings.

I think the difference with white people is that often times they don't feel the same sense of humiliation when moving to another country, especially one with a strong colonial mentality. In this case, there is a strong sense of entitlement.