'The Namesake': One Family, Two Worlds

March 19, 2007 — -- It is unusual to hear the Queensboro Bridge in New York City and the Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, India, mentioned in the same breath. But renowned film director Mira Nair has brought them together -- and to much critical acclaim.

Sitting down to talk with ABC's movie critic Joel Siegel about "The Namesake," her new film, Nair describes "the most personal film" she has ever made as "a banquet of the two cities she has grown up in," Kolkata and New York. Based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, "The Namesake" follows an Indian family over a span of 30 years as it journeys between two seemingly disparate lands -- India and the United States -- to find common connections between cities many would think shared few similarities.

"The state of the immigrant is one in which you live between worlds," explains Nair.

Shooting for 6½ weeks in New York and two weeks in Kolkata and Agra, India, "The Namesake" frequently floats between these two ostensibly different yet innately similar cities and worlds.

"You feel like Ashima [the mother], when she's looking through her window at the Queensboro Bridge, and it actually takes her to the Howrah Bridge of Calcutta. So, the audience understands what it's like to live between worlds," Nair said.

"The Namesake" tells the story of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguly (played by distinguished Indian film actors Irrfan Khan and Tabu), a Bengali couple who move from their home in Kolkata to follow Ashoke's career to New York City.

We watch as the couple, and Ashima in particular, adjust to a new life in an unfamiliar place, where the weather is bone-chillingly cold and where a precious resource like gas is available 24 hours a day in their stove.

The story then shifts to the story of their American-born son, Gogol, played by Indian-American actor Kal Penn (most famous for his role as a marijuana-smoking suburban thrill-seeker in "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle"), who through the years becomes increasingly confused by and even disdainful toward his parents and his dual upbringing --