Okay,
for once, I had thought I would let Mr. Raja Sen at Rediff have a field day and not disagree with his review on The Namesake even if I wished too. But, one of the problems with Rediff that I have noticed is they simply act a bit too opinionated, which can get on your nerves. Now, on The Namsake [prolly because their reviewers thought it was ossum], they have gone ahead article after article, praise after praise, so now, me has to like step in :P.
Okay, for starters, I would agree to something, all the actors, even the Mr. funnybone Kal Penn have excelled themselves led by obviously Irrfan, the finest Indian actor of today, the way he makes the roundish Bengali accent his own, inspires awe and sounds so natural, you would think, he was probably born a Bengali afterall.
But, the problem lies with the script and the execution. Maybe, all good books are not supposed to be made into movies, or maybe you need to digress from the source if it is not translating aptly to the screen. I dunno really if The Namesake is a great movie at all, because it never engaged me, there was simply no connect that happened, I never felt for any of the characters and all, and in the end when we walked out, the only things we discussed were was the actors.
As I would put it, Namesake is just an okay movie with great acting. At the end of it, you don't feel the gulp in the throat or the need to say "I love you" to people who matter, you just walk out and that's it. Mebbe, Nair has made it a tad too fast, just copying the book scene by scene, forgetting to add her great humane touch to it, which would have kicked-in the connect.
Namesake is a good timepass, but make no mistake, its not a great movie or an oscar-winner. Its a simple movie, probably not even beautiful :-).
My tuppence :)
Ranjan
for once, I had thought I would let Mr. Raja Sen at Rediff have a field day and not disagree with his review on The Namesake even if I wished too. But, one of the problems with Rediff that I have noticed is they simply act a bit too opinionated, which can get on your nerves. Now, on The Namsake [prolly because their reviewers thought it was ossum], they have gone ahead article after article, praise after praise, so now, me has to like step in :P.
Okay, for starters, I would agree to something, all the actors, even the Mr. funnybone Kal Penn have excelled themselves led by obviously Irrfan, the finest Indian actor of today, the way he makes the roundish Bengali accent his own, inspires awe and sounds so natural, you would think, he was probably born a Bengali afterall.
But, the problem lies with the script and the execution. Maybe, all good books are not supposed to be made into movies, or maybe you need to digress from the source if it is not translating aptly to the screen. I dunno really if The Namesake is a great movie at all, because it never engaged me, there was simply no connect that happened, I never felt for any of the characters and all, and in the end when we walked out, the only things we discussed were was the actors.
As I would put it, Namesake is just an okay movie with great acting. At the end of it, you don't feel the gulp in the throat or the need to say "I love you" to people who matter, you just walk out and that's it. Mebbe, Nair has made it a tad too fast, just copying the book scene by scene, forgetting to add her great humane touch to it, which would have kicked-in the connect.
Namesake is a good timepass, but make no mistake, its not a great movie or an oscar-winner. Its a simple movie, probably not even beautiful :-).
My tuppence :)
Ranjan
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