That's a staple of Indian films: the primacy of the vertical connection (from generation to generation) over the horizontal (from husband to wife). You get no points for guessing that Gogol will climactically realize that being part of this family is more important than making one of his own. When the upwardly mobile lad is told, 'Your parents want you to marry a nice Indian girl,' he snaps, 'I don't care what they want. The son, who becomes an architect, rebels against Ashok and Ashima by using the Gogol name, by moving in with a daughter of white privilege (Barrett), by questioning nearly every tradition his starchy parents were raised in. Straight off they come to live in New York, where their two children are born: a boy (Penn), whom they nickname Gogol, after the author Ashopk was reading on the fateful train, and his sister Sonia (played by the director's niece Sahira). It's the reason they came here, what they hope and perhaps expect.Ĭalcutta, 1977: Ashok (Khan), a university graduate and survivor of a train wreck, enters into an arranged marriage with Ashima (Tabu), who has been studying music.

'Land of opportunity,' 'Anything is possible': to those new to America this isn't political rhetoric. Her new film, from a best-selling novel, distills the immigrant experience into two generations of Indians and Indian-Americans, and two brisk hours of home truths that are no less touching for being cliches. Harry Smith, the CBS newsman, once managed to deride two major cities by calling New York 'Calcutta without the cows.' Mira Nair grew up near Calcutta, has lived half her life in New York, and loves both places, though not blindly. With Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn, Zuleikha Robinson, Jacinda Barrett, Sahira Nair 2007 Director: Mira Nair Screenplay: Sooni Taraporevala, from the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri

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