Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire, starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto
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Thursday, 08, Jan 2009 06:13
By Richard James.
Directed by Danny Boyle, showing at the London Film Festival, starring, Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Freida Pinto, 120 mins.
In a nutshell...
Kid from the slums on verge of winning the biggest prize
What's it all about?
Eighteen year-old Jamal Malik, an orphan form the slums of Mumbai, is just one question from winning 20 million rupees on India's version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? But when filming stops for the day before he can answer the final question Jamal is dramatically arrested on suspicion of cheating - no one it seems is willing to believe a kid from the slums could possible know any of the answers he has been set - and brutally interrogated by the police.
Jamal is forced to narrate his remarkable life, his journey from the city slums to the hot seat on the national TV show, and the girl he loved and lost along the way. How is it that he knows all the answers and why is someone with no interest in money appearing on the show at all?
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Who's in it?
Dev Patel who plays Jamal has had only one other role of note, that of Anwar in the Channel 4 cult series Skins. The actor recently turned 18 and we will no doubt be seeing a lot more of him on our TV and cinema screens in the near future.
Freida Pinto, who plays the love interest Latika, similarly is a relative unknown and Slumdog represents her first lead role in a feature film.
Anil Kapoor (Millionaire host Prem) has starred in almost 100 Hindi movies and won a number of prestigious accolades including four Filmfare awards (the Indian equivalent of the Oscars).
Danny Boyle has developed into somewhat of a cult British director. His previous films include Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach, 28 Days Later, and Sunshine.
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars?
There is a lot of talk about this getting a best film nod, with Variety magazine claiming Fox Searchlight is backing it to bring glory on Oscar night. The British film industry will predictably lap it up. The fusion of mainstream UK filmmaking and Bollywood will get the folks at Bafta very excited indeed.
What the others say
"Slumdog Millionaire is that rarity, a populist, mainstream entertainment that finds a way to deliver cheerful uplift to its audience without ever insulting the intelligence." - Telegraph
"Set in India and featuring a lot of Hindi and severe poverty, it's not typical Oscar stuff at first glance. But it also features adorable children, a literal rags-to-riches story, and a glimpse into a fascinating foreign culture, plus an audience-pleasing ending that's so sappy it'll make your teeth hurt." - Cinema Blend.com
So is it any good?
Slumdog Millionaire is based on the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup. The two differ on one hugely decisive issue - the book has no love interest. Slumdog Millionaire is a brilliant portrayal of life in the slums of a developing country, it is shot in a wonderfully fast-paced and intense style and the acting by the relatively unknown cast is spot on. The love story, however, is confused and strikingly out of place.
The film's screenwriter Simon Beaufoy has expressed his joy at developing and introducing the love story into the script and the fact he was able to use and incorporate so many different genres and mini-tales within the overall story. Fair enough. There is no doubting that the brutal torture scenes are hard-hitting and the character arcs of Jamal and his older brother Salim out of the slums and into adulthood are fascinating and utterly engaging. It's what we've now come to expect from a Danny Boyle film.
Throw a love story in there and you've got far too much going on and you're left with a slightly muddled tale. Boyle's film works brilliantly in the slums with sections of the story delivered in subtitles and its total embrace of Indian culture. It's where it tries to present the love story in a classic Bollywood style - we even have the massive ensemble Bollywood dance at the end - that Slumdog fails.
It's a real shame because before the film gets overtaken by this mis-guided premise it's a really impressive piece of work. You just can't go through this compelling brutal under-dog tale and have the last few words being "it's our destiny" whispered between the main characters, it undermines any serious issues addressed in the previous two hours.
But for the love story, Slumdog is a solid effort and Boyle has firmly established himself as one of Britain's finest directors working today.
6/10
Richard James
"Richard the love story is fantastic! Totally adds to the film - 10/10 from me." - Carolyn Robertson
"I LOVE this movie. Some Indians don't like it like there was this one famous indian actor who was gonna play the starring role but then they picked Dev Patel and the famous indian movie star was mad so he said it was a bad movie but it ISN'T - it's the BEST MOVIE EVER" - Kim Parx