Netflix It: The Namesake

#18 - The Namesake

Available on Netflix: The Namesake, directed by Mira Nair

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

A couple coming to terms with living in a new culture discover their troubles are compounded by their son in this drama from filmmaker Mira Nair. Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) are a young couple who are brought together in an arranged marriage and soon leave Calcutta to seek their fortune in America. As the couple becomes accustomed to one another, they learn to deal with the coolness and superficiality of life in New York, even as they revel in the opportunities the city offers them. Before long, Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, and pressed to choose a name, they dub the infant Nikhil, though he soon picks up the nickname Gogol, after Ashoke's favorite author. By the time the child is old enough to attend school, he insists upon being called Gogol at all times, and he displays little interest in his Indian heritage. Several years on, Gogol has decided he wants to be called Nick (and is now played by Kal Penn) and has become a thoroughly Americanized teenager, openly rebelling against his parents, smoking marijuana in his room, and dating Maxine (Jacinda Barrett), a preppy blonde from a wealthy family. Ashoke and Ashima are uncertain about how to deal with their son's attempts to cut himself off from their culture, but Nick begins expressing some uncertainty himself when he meets Moushumi (Zuleikha Robinson), a beautiful girl who also comes from a family of Indian expatriates. The Namesake was adapted from the bestselling novel by Jhumpa Lahiri.

The film's website is here.

Netflix It: Vanity Fair

#17 - Vanity Fair

Available on Netflix: Vanity Fair, directed by Mira Nair

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

William Makepeace Thackeray's witty assessment of the British class system, as seen through the experiences of one young woman, is brought to the screen with some serious star power in this period comedy drama. Becky Sharp (Reese Witherspoon) is a bright and ambitious girl born to a poor British family. Becky is determined to make something of herself however she can, and after accepting a job as a nanny for the children of the powerful and aristocratic Sir Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins), she wastes no time ingratiating herself with the family. Pretty Becky catches the eye of Crawley's handsome and eligible son Rawdon (James Purefoy), and becomes chummy with sharp-tongued Aunt Matilda (Eileen Atkins). Between the two of them, Becky is introduced to London's most exclusive social circle, where she becomes re-acquainted with Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai), a former school chum who is amused by Becky's efforts to scale the ladder of social influence. Becky weds Rawdon, but following initial happiness, the social and economic stability she dreamed of begins to collapse when he begins drowning his troubles in gambling and drink, and soon she turns to the powerful Marquess of Steyne (Gabriel Byrne) for support. Meanwhile, Amelia's fortunes fall even harder following the death of her husband. Vanity Fair was directed by Mira Nair, who enjoyed a surprise international success with 2002's Monsoon Wedding.

The movie's website is here.

Amelia

Opening this weekend: Amelia, directed by Mira Nair

Synopsis from the film's website:

Amelia stars two-time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart, the legendary aviatrix and enigmatic symbol of the American free spirit, who was guided by a profound curiosity for everything life had to offer.

Earhart's early aviation triumphs and meteoric rise to fame and fortune were propelled along by her tempestuous partnership and eventual marriage to publisher George Putnam. Bound by mutual ambition, admiration and, ultimately a great love, their bond could not be broken even with her brief passionate affair with Gene Vidal.

Ms. Earhart was the first woman to solo the Atlantic and was the first pilot, man or woman, to fly unaccompanied across the Pacific. In Amelia's attempt to be the first to fly around the world in an equatorial flight. Her life was tragically cut short with her mysterious and untimely disappearance over the South Pacific in 1937.

New York, I Love You

Opening this weekend: New York, I Love You, directed by a whole bunch of people, including Mira Nair and Natalie Portman

The whole exercise seems a bit myopic (apparently only one of the segments recognizes a city outside Manhattan), so maybe we should not be surprised that of ten directors, just two are women. Still, it could be worse.

Synopsis from the New York Times website:

New York, I Love You is the second installment in a franchise of urban anthology films that began in Paris and is scheduled to touch down soon in Rio, Shanghai, Mumbai and Jerusalem. My own sentimental heart is holding out for Dayton, Ohio. Eventually, like a cinematic version of Google Earth, these movies, the brainchild of the producer Emmanuel Benbihy, will cover every inch of the globe with big-name actors and tiny romantic epiphanies. It may not be a project that will make the world smaller or friendlier — only, perhaps, a bit more precious. Not that the 11 shorts in “New York, I Love You” are all that bad. It’s a nice-looking city, after all, even if the interstitial skyline and traffic montages assembled by Randy Balsmeyer are about as fresh as the postcards on sale in Times Square. Each vignette was shot in two days, and the roster of directing talent includes Mira Nair (“The Namesake” and the forthcoming “Amelia”), Fatih Akin (“Head-On” and “The Edge of Heaven”) and Natalie Portman, making her debut behind the camera. (She also plays a Hasidic diamond broker in Ms. Nair’s contribution.) But in spite of some attempts at human and neighborhood variety, the stories have a self-conscious sameness, as if they were classroom assignments in an undergraduate fiction-writing class.

(Let this lackluster synopsis serve as a warning to web designers for the movie websites: make your own synopses easier to cut and paste! New York, I Love You's own synopsis can be found on its website.)