And He's Going to Marry Her?

      Although the film adaptation of The Namesake remained fairly true to the general plot, it did take a few liberties in its adaptation of the novel. The moment that stands out in my mind is when Gogol first meets Moushumi, because he walks into the room and actually gags. I can't really blame him for this, the wardrobe department certainly had a field day with Moushumi's appearance, and I thought that scene was hilarious. In fact, I kept thinking about it later during swim practice and I nearly choked on pool water because I was laughing so much. But this scene didn't happen the same way in the book, where Gogol seems to remember Moushumi with almost complete indifference: he didn't have anything to say to her but he wasn't gagging at her either. At first I didn't think this was a big deal, movie adaptations stray from their literary inspirations all the time, and this didn't even seem like much of a change. However, as I thought about it more, I realized how weird it is that Gogol is going to marry Moushumi. How could you marry someone who gagged the first time they met you? This makes me curious to see what is going to happen that so completely turns around Gogol's perception of Moushumi. I feel like there needs to be more to this turnaround than was in the book because there he only needed to go from indifference to interest, in the movie he needs to somehow go from disgust to interest.