Adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri's novel and directed by the overly emphatic Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), The Namesake is a perfectly subtle story that stiffens with each new visual gimmick.

A mostly arranged marriage takes a young Bengali girl to the lonely United States, where she slowly adapts and raises two children before her husband's sudden death. The first generation—Ashoke Ganguli (Irrfan Khan) and his bride Ashima (Tabu, a master of nuance)—reside in an India buzzing with film grain (the better to flashback with, my dears). When the couple marries and sets up house in Queens, the color leaches out of the cold, cold frame. Then, when their children come of age, that pesky grain resolves into sharp corners and bright lights, as though the second generation were dragging them into new film stock instead of American culture.

There are bonkingly obvious characterizations as well (Jacinda Barrett plays the pushiest WASP that ever did sting; Zuleikha Robinson is a nerd who takes off her glasses and shakes down rivers of hair), but at least the four Ganguli family members are allowed some breathing room. With the exception of one googly-tourist-eyes moment I'll blame on an inattentive editor, Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) is fantastic as a second-generation Bengali American who shoves off his parents' traditions and then swings back—perhaps an inch too far—in their direction. Only he could soft-peddle lines like "Being pulled by another human being is feudal and exploitative and I don't want to be a part of that" and emerge endearingly unpretentious.

With The Namesake, Nair proves she's only getting wobblier with experience—did the horrible lip-synch sequence in Vanity Fair teach her nothing? Still, all the juicy emotions you expect are dialed up to the nines.