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Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: A moving generational drama focusing on a Bengali family but searingly universal in its subtle, tender grasp of love, regret and the search for identity. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: [Director] Nair and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala bring the novel's velvety heart to the screen. The film glides smoothly over the years, touching down to give us the vignettes that make up a life. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: The Namesake brims with intelligence, compassion and sensuous delight in the textures, sights and sounds of life -- all the way from the Taj Mahal to Pearl Jam. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A saga of the immigrant experience that captures the snap, crackle and pop of American life, along with the pounding pulse, emotional reticence, volcanic colors and cherished rituals of Indian culture. Read more
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: A deeply moving saga of several generations of a Bengali family. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Intelligent and insightful, The Namesake celebrates family in a unique way. Read more
Keith Phipps, AV Club: Deserves credit for its graceful attempt to tell an all-American story with warm, unromanticized characters trying to discover who they are in a land too eager to impose its own definition on them. Read more
Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: This is a wonderful movie. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The Namesake has a deep, alluvial poetry to it, like a mighty river reaching the sea. It's mysterious and ordinary, insightful and banal, rambling and precise, and it is altogether unexpected. Read more
Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times: An intimate, melancholy look at the isolation and disorientation common to the immigrant experience. Read more
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: There's more love and heart in The Namesake than in many Hollywood dramas. I just wish the filmmakers had spread it around. Cross-cultural understanding should be a two-way street. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The Namesake takes in a lot of territory, and at times is too diffuse, too attenuated. But the actors are so expressive that they provide their own continuity. They transport us to a realm of pure feeling. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: The Namesake is three-fourths of a fine film. Which is, of course, far better than most. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: A movie that will speak to anyone who has ever felt pulled in different directions by his own heart. Read more
Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: It is a saga told in small pieces, a patchwork of short scenes that tumble after each other almost apologetically, as if they would love to linger a little longer, but there is too much to tell and only so much time in which to do it. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Mira Nair has made one of the best movies about the immigrant American experience ever. And even if you know nothing about India and its customs, The Namesake is not a movie you have to get into. Read more
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: The Namesake combines the intimate pleasures of a family saga with a finely sustained inquiry into the difficult balance between separation and integration that shapes the consciousness of first-generation emigres and their children. Read more
Jan Stuart, Newsday: The actors are so engaging and the settings often so seductive, we pleasurably submit to what is essentially a two-hour penance for all the hurt and wrongs one has ever inflicted upon one's parents. Read more
David Ansen, Newsweek: The Namesake illuminates the immigrant experience in ways that feel at once exotic and deeply familiar. Read more
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: There's elegance in the cinematography and pathos in some of the performances, but the script lacks structure. The movie shuttles between life events, more a snapshot collection of episodes than a cohesive character study. Read more
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: This gorgeously designed and photographed movie artfully depicts the immigrant experience in ways that transcend its setting. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Penn is just wrong for it. Read more
Teresa Budasi, Chicago Sun-Times: Though the film seems hurried in the last half hour -- most likely to get as much of the book covered as possible -- it still maintains a loveliness bridged by these two generations of Gangulis, whose disparate life experiences cannot bond them. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: This sweet, but not cloying, adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's delicate novel brings us some wonderful moments. Read more
Susan Walker, Toronto Star: Ultimately, the film leaves us floundering. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: Nair has taken a fascinating piece of literature and woven a rich cultural tapestry for the screen. The Namesake elicits laughter and tears in its profound and emotionally resonant family portrait. Read more
Scott Foundas, Variety: Jhumpa Lahiri's wildly popular novel about two generations of a Bengali family receives a loving, deeply felt screen translation that should appease fans of the book while making many new converts. Read more
Ella Taylor, Village Voice: Combines the intimate pleasures of a family saga with a finely sustained inquiry into the difficult balance between separation and integration that shapes the lives of first-generation immigrants and their children in crucially different ways. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Like the best-selling novel it's based on, The Namesake chronicles two generations of an Indian immigrant family with compelling flow. Read more