I had the wonderful opportunity to see Mira Nair's The Namesake (adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri's novel of the same name and one of my favorite books) when it opened this past Friday and was tempted to write about it last night but thought that I needed a day or so to digest it and adequately sort my thoughts.

I find it very hard to find a film that moves me with just the right amount of truth and subtlety, in which emotions are raw but not overdone and a story is told in a way that hits me square in the chest. Maybe I'm too picky - or maybe films these days just aren't up to par. Either way, I spent two hours in the theater on Friday night alternately falling in love with the nuances of immigrant parents and their estranged, Americanized children, and clutching a wad of napkins so tightly in my hand that they molded to the shape of my palm, tears streaming off my chin and onto my shirt as my heart broke just as it had when I read the book.

I won't give away the plot (follow the links above to get a summary) but I have come away from it feeling so compassionate for the experience that my parents - that all first-generation parents - have had here. There is so much unspoken love in the sacrifices that they make for their children - that my parents made for me, that for too long I haven't taken the time to appreciate or reciprocate. And then it angers me that there is so much ignorance and discrimination regarding the immigrant experience - poking fun at hard to pronounce, non-"American" names, at thick accented English, at unfamiliar customs - just because it's not what American people have known their whole lives.

There are just so many stories to be told. Endless stories, and I haven't been diligent enough to even sit down and crank out one. Seeing films like this only pushes me harder, only invigorates me.

I would see it again in a heartbeat. Who's in?