SOME people are outsiders by nature, others by circumstance . . .although over time circumstance can become second nature. Either way it's a state of being where cinema finds much of its drama and passion, Mira Nair in particular. Whether with the street urchins who gang together in Salaam Bombay, the courtesan victimised in Kama Sutra or Becky Sharp, the woman of dubious breeding who takes on English society in Vanity Fair, Nair's heart is invariably with the underdog.

The Namesake, a sumptuous family saga that sweeps from Calcutta in the 1970s to modernday New York . . . adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri's bestseller . . .

provides rich material for her vibrant feel for the ups and downs of life. Immigrants, after all, are the ultimate outsiders, uprooted from their families and traditions and forced to start all over again as others in a culture that is not their own.

What's terrific about The Namesake is that Nair avoids all the cliches of the genre. The India that the young couple Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) leave behind after an arranged marriage, and the America where as virtual strangers to each other they attempt to build a new life, are equally appealing in their different ways: neither one nor the other is preferred but rather celebrated by Nair for what they are. The real tension in the story is provided by the generational and cultural gap that develops between the couple and their son Gogol (Kal Penn), born of Bengali parents and saddled on a whim with the name of a Russian author, but struggling to find his own identity as an American.

The action jumps between Calcutta and New York, creating a rich emotional tapestry in which the characters come intriguingly alive with all their human ambivalence and contradictions.

At its heart is the love story of Ashoke and Ashima that grows from fumbling misunderstandings and hesitancy to a deep and lasting passion in which even the slightest touch or kiss is charged with eroticism. By contrast, Gogol's relationship with his rich American girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) is without inhibition, even in front of her approving parents.

The Namesake . . . from the early shock of a horrific train crash to a final moment of heart-wrenching grief when a woman picks up the phone to be casually told of her husband's death and goes out into her dark suburban garden to let out a piercing scream that no one heeds . . . runs the full gamut of emotions without for a moment slipping into soap opera banality.