The Namesake (April 4th)

A combination of Bollywood and Hollywood, this movie tells the story about a couple from one culture raising a family in another culture. The film begins with an Indian man and woman meeting formally in India and becoming engaged to move to the United States and raise two children. Director Mira Nair emphasizes the family bond as the strongest bond existing and continuing from generation to generation.
We also see the family growing culturally and physically when the daughter marries an American man. The son, Gogol, struggles to find his individual identity only to learn that his family love and history gave him his identity. The film uses Gogol and his family’s story as a representation among many immigrants family struggle in a new country. The children of the immigrants want to fit in with their surroundings, but the parents are used to another culture and try to teach their children about their background while accepting the new culture as well.
The story is also a coming-of-age story where Gogol learns that every story can have two sides like his name. A visual technique used to portray this is in the airport when Gogol looks at the digital flight schedule at the airport that looks different from different angles. After Gogol learns the truth about his name, he realizes his father’s desire for Gogol to have the opportunity to choose how to live his life. He learns that people have more than one side to them too. Gogol has several failures to understand his father’s wisdom which represents the every man’s life lessons.