One of the movie's biggest weaknesses is that it feels very much like an adaptation of a book. The story has an episodic feel to it, with some of those episodes getting short shrift. Particularly underdeveloped is Gogol's later relationship with a sexy Bengali woman, Moushumi (Mo), who first appears to be more his match, and who has chosen a third culture, French, to embrace. It's an interesting but largely unexplored theme, the identity that is created from coming from one place, living in another, and embracing the otherness of a third.

But Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, Vanity Fair) is a filmmaker with a lush visual style, and The Namesake is full of scenes beautiful both for their artistry and for their affecting character moments. A scene of a mature Gogol trying on his father's shoes echoes the earlier scene of a young Ashima, and airports become magical or heartbreaking gateways between two worlds. She makes us care about these characters even when their stories aren't explored as much as they could be.

The DVD extras include a commentary with Nair, a few deleted scenes that give a bit more time to Mo, and a brief segment called "In Character with Kal Penn," in which the actor is too erudite to be mistaken for Kumar as he insists that Gogol is comfortable with his identity but not the assumptions others make about it. (In a nice touch, given the themes of the movie, Penn is credited twice for The Namesake, under Kal Penn as Gogol, and under his birth name, Kalpen Modi, as Nikhil.)

In addition, "Anatomy of The Namesake" is a well-titled half-hour documentary dissecting the filmmaking process for a class at Columbia University. Director and producer Mira Nair is joined by others on her team to talk about everything from the vision of the film to financing to post-production. The detail is mind-numbing to a casual film fan like me who's interested in behind the scenes machinations but can't be bothered to understand exactly what a bond company is. Despite that, this is the kind of niche extra I think DVDs should do more often, in this case offering budding filmmakers a mini lesson.

The Namesake isn't as tightly woven or ultimately satisfying a story as I'd have liked, but the funny, touching film uses a specific immigrant experience to illuminate universal themes of family, identity, and loss, which made following its meandering path through the lives of these characters rewarding.