Heritage and heart

'The Namesake" is what I like to call a "heart vs. head" movie. You'll immediately sense a well-intentioned sincerity and sentimentality on display in director Mira Nair's proudly affectionate adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's 2004 debut novel.

But there are some things working against the film that may keep you from falling as deeply in love with it as those who were involved in making it.

An epic movie that spans decades, "Namesake" chronicles the evolution of a Bengali family living in the U.S. of A., trying to keep their identity and values intact. The heads of the household, husband Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and wife Ashima (Tabu), who moved to the country after their arranged marriage, find this to be a Herculean task when their son and daughter practically fly out of the womb bitten by the American bug.

While "Namesake" follows the parents staying true to their history and traditions on foreign soil, the movie is more about their eldest offspring, Gogol (Kal Penn).

Abruptly named at birth after his dad's favorite author, the highly anglicized Gogol, like most young men, grows up rebelling against who he is. He even goes so far as to change his name and get a blond WASP (Jacinda Barrett) for a girlfriend. But a tragedy makes Gogol rediscover his heritage, break up with his girlfriend and, later, willfully step into an arranged marriage of his own with a sultry, Eurocentric Bengali (Zuleikha Robinson).

Managing to be both delicate and grand, "Namesake" is a film that could very easily draw you in with its touching characters and visual preciousness. Yet while the movie has its glorious moments, the story suffers from a certain unruliness.

Nair, working from a script by Sooni Taraporevala (who wrote "Salaam Bombay!" and "Mississippi Masala" for Nair), crams in so much of the novel (as well as references from Lahiri's short-story collection "Interpreter of Maladies") that the movie occasionally feels unfocused.

Still, audiences may end up getting swept away by the inviting family saga that will unfold in front of them. They may even be more impressed with actor-turned-newly announced University of Pennsylvania professor (yes, it's true!) Penn, mostly known for his bawdy high jinks in the pro-Asian-American stoner comedy "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and the "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" movies. He brings an assured, dramatic weight to his performance.

A movie that wears its heart and its flaws on its sleeve, "The Namesake" will embrace you into its bosom one way or the other.