Slumdog Millionaire

What a fun movie this was! The images are lush with the color and grit of a poverty-stricken Mumbai, India. The overall structure of the film was refreshing -- our hero, Jamal, has been accused of cheating on the popular show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." Having grown up an uneducated, homeless, orphan the police find it hard to believe he could possibly answer so many obscure trivia questions correctly. Jamal claims that his life experience taught him lessons that, at least in the context of the chosen game show questions, served him as well as a formal education. The police inspector has a video of the show and as Jamal explains question by question how he knew the answers... the audience learns the story of his life through flashbacks.

The film vibrates off the screen with a texture and realism that could only be captured on- location in India. Ive never been to south Asia, but a couple years ago I saw a film about a group of impoverished Indian children called "Born Into Brothels," which won the Oscar that year for Best Documentary. The documentary was shot on video and revealed a world unlike anything Id ever seen before. "Slum Dog Millionaire" is pure fiction, but Boyle and company have truly captured the vibrancy, the movement, and the indelible hope that can be seen reflected in the eyes of children growing up in destitute poverty the world over.

The youngsters who play Jamal, his brother Salim, and Latika (Jamals childhood sweetheart) are some of the best child performances Ive ever seen on film. The child who plays the youngest incarnation of Jamal is nothing short of a miracle in my opinion. Even more surprising is the revelation that these kids are not actors, but were plucked from slums not unlike the ones depicted in the film.

The best part of the film are the flashback sequences-- they have a life of their own thanks to some incredible cinematography, a pulsating soundtrack, funny writing, and great performances. The game show sequences do their job, despite being over-simplified -- Anil Kapoor, who plays a mean-spirited Meredith Viera, slithers through his scenes with slimy finesse. Hes even able to pull off a ridiculous scene in a bathroom where his character tries to manipulate Jamal. I just found it distracting that this opportunity would even present itself. But thats just me.

As for the latter part of the film, it fails to live up to the promise of the beginning. The weakest part is a love story that seems oddly forced/clichéd given the other strengths of the storyline. I suppose its not really an Indian film if its not about love, but from the start this film seemed to be about the relationship between the two brothers. I couldnt help but feel like there was some opportunity lost to tell a different, more interesting story there.

Dev Patel (from the terrific BBC show "Skins") plays the oldest Jamal and does a solid job. His appealing innocence is what makes us care about him from the first moment we see him. Unfortunately by the end, its that same innocence that makes it hard to buy that he experienced the difficult life thats been revealed to us over the course of the movie. The beautiful Frieda Pinto (who plays the oldest incarnation of Latika) has a similar problem. Shes given even less acting to do, but pulls off the damsel in distress role as well as anybody. The ending falls flat in a final game show sequence that is notable for its complete lack of suspense. We have a trivia question the western audience knows the answer to, and the wrapping up of a storyline that we see coming from 30 minutes away.

In the final 15 minutes, things are unraveling quickly, and yet Boyle saves the ending by doing away with the predictable "guy gets rich, gets girl, and drives off into the sunset" motif. Instead Boyle keeps it simple and stays true to the world he did such an impeccable job creating. And to seal the deal? A marvelous Bollywood dance send up during the ending credits. This ending sequence is so much fun and leaves us, not thinking about the films shortcomings, but rather with the memory of all there is to LOVE about this movie: Energy, color, and optimism in the midst of very harsh world.

Slumdog Millionaire was scripted by Simon Beaufoy, who had written the script for The Full Monty (1997), which was one of director Danny Boyles favorite British films. The script is based on the bestselling novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup. Though the scripts byline about a Hindi kid winning the local version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? did not appeal to Boyle at first, he read the script out of respect for Beaufoy. The director was entranced by the script, particularly the implementation of the extraordinarily difficult Hindi version of the game show compared to the American and British versions. Boyle also called the script a "love story," since the streetkid who goes on the game show had lost his girlfriend in Mumbai and finds that the only way to reach her is to appear on the show, which she watches religiously. By August 2007, the companies Celador Films and Film4 greenlit Slumdog Millionaire, with Fox Searchlight Pictures and Pathé taking up the American and international rights respectively, with Danny Boyle directing and British actor Dev Patel cast into the lead role as the Indian streetkid. Boyle also entered talks with actor Shahrukh Khan for the film as the game show host, but Anil Kapoor took the role instead. The companies fully financed the production, which began on November 5, 2007 in Mumbai. Boyle worked with regular collaborators as well as an Indian crew in the country. The director filmed partly in Hindi and mostly in English, having expressed his love for Hinglish films as the influence. The film was co-directed by Loveleen Tandan who had earlier cast films like "Monsoon Wedding" and "Brick Lane."

The films music has been composed by the Indian music composer A. R. Rahman. There is a song during the end credits where the entire cast breaks out into a dance number, which has already become an instant hit with the critics. Rahman has collaborated with M.I.A. on a song ("O...Saya") for the score, which also features her single "Paper Planes." In a CBC interview, the director Danny Boyle says she was a "gift" to the projects soundtrack stating "We asked her if shed come and sing on one of these songs - Its lovely the way these things arrive, and extraordinary how they work out." Boyle calls the music the best part of the film in his interview to The Wall Street Journal website livemint.com.

What I feel for this movie isnt just admiration, its mad love. And I couldnt be more surprised. The plot reeks of uplift: An illiterate slum kid from Mumbai goes on the local TV version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and comes off like a brainiac. Who wants to see that? Final answer: You do. Slumdog Millionaire has the goods to bust out as a scrappy contender in the Oscar race. Its modern India standing in for a world in full economic spin. Its an explosion of color and light with the darkness ever ready to invade. Its a family film of shocking brutality, a romance haunted by sexual abuse, a fantasy of wealth fueled by crushing poverty.

You wont find many fairy tales that open with a graphic torture scene. The cops think 18-year-old Jamal Malik (a sensational Dev Patel) is a fraud. Goaded by the shows host (the superb Anil Kapoor), the police inspector (Irrfan Khan) is determined to beat the truth out of Jamal before he goes back on the show and hits thejackpot of 20 million rupees. Presumably this is not the way Regis Philbin ran things when the show hit America in 1999.

Brimming with humor and heartbreak, Slumdog Millionaire meets at the border of art and commerce and lets one flow into the other as if that were the natural order of things. Sweet. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) brings focus to Q & A, the episodic Vikas Swarup novel on which the film is based. Still, the MVP here is Danny Boyle, who directs the film brilliantly. Boyle is the Irish-Catholic working-class Brit who put his surreal mark on zombies (28 Days Later) and smack addicts (Trainspotting), and made us see ourselves in their blood wars. Those movies were so potent, as was his 1994 debut, Shallow Grave, that we looked the other way when Boyle went Hollywood with The Beach and screwed up with A Life Less Ordinary. Somehow we knew that Boyle had the stuff to work miracles.

Heres the proof. We learn the history of Jamal and the other principal characters in flashbacks, as Jamal answers questions on the TV show not from book knowledge — he has none — but his own life experiences. Jamal is searching for two people from his childhood: his wild older brother Salim (an outstanding Madhur Mittal), now a thief and killer, and his adored Latika (the achingly lovely Freida Pinto), now stepping up from child prostitute to plaything of a gangster. Every incident, including the brothers watching their mother die in an anti-Muslim riot, feeds into Jamals answers on the show. OK, the concept bends coincidence to the breaking point. But Jamals traumatic youth is his lifeline. Boyle makes magic realism part of the films fabric, the essential part that lets in hope without compromising integrity.

Anthony Dod Mantle uses compact digital cameras to move with speed and stealth through the slums and palaces of Mumbai. The film is a visual wonder, propelled by A.R. Rahmans hip-hopping score and Chris Dickens kinetic editing. The whoosh of action and romance pulls you in, but its the bruised characters who hold you there. Every step Jamal takes toward his final answer could get him killed. Even in the Bollywood musical number that ends the film, joy and pain are still joined in the dance. The no-bull honesty of Slumdog Millionaire hits you hard. Its the real deal. No cheating.

Danny Boyles "Slumdog Millionaire" hits the ground running. This is a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time, about a Mumbai orphan who rises from rags to riches on the strength of his lively intelligence. The films universal appeal will present the real India to millions of moviegoers for the first time.

The real India, supercharged with a plot as reliable and eternal as the hills. The films surface is so dazzling that you hardly realize how traditional it is underneath. But its the buried structure that pulls us through the story like a big engine on a short train.

By the real India, I dont mean an unblinking documentary like Louis Malles "Calcutta" or the recent "Born Into Brothels." I mean the real India of social levels that seem to be separated by centuries. What do people think of when they think of India? On the one hand, Mother Teresa, "Salaam Bombay!" and the wretched of the earth. On the other, the "Masterpiece Theater"-style images of "A Passage to India," "Gandhi" and "The Jewel in the Crown."

"Slumdog Millionaire" bridges these two Indias by cutting between a world of poverty and the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." It tells the story of an orphan from the slums of Mumbai who is born into a brutal existence. A petty thief, impostor and survivor, mired in dire poverty, he improvises his way up through the world and remembers everything he has learned.

His name is Jamel (played as a teenager by Dev Patel). He is Oliver Twist. High-spirited and defiant in the worst of times, he survives. He scrapes out a living at the Taj Mahal, which he did not know about but discovers by being thrown off a train. He pretends to be a guide, invents "facts" out of thin air, advises tourists to remove their shoes and then steals them. He finds a bit part in the Mumbai underworld, and even falls in idealized romantic love, that most elusive of conditions for a slumdog.

His life until he is 20 is told in flashbacks intercut with his appearance as a quiz show contestant. Pitched as a slumdog, he supplies the correct answer to question after question and becomes a national hero. The flashbacks show why he knows the answers. He doesnt volunteer this information. It is beaten out of him by the shows security staff. They are sure he must be cheating.

The film uses dazzling cinematography, breathless editing, driving music and headlong momentum to explode with narrative force, stirring in a romance at the same time. For Danny Boyle, it is a personal triumph. He combines the suspense of a game show with the vision and energy of "City of God" and never stops sprinting.

When I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" at Toronto, I was witnessing a phenomenon: dramatic proof that a movie is about how it tells itself. I walked out of the theater and flatly predicted it would win the Audience Award. Seven days later, it did. And that it could land a best picture Oscar nomination. We will see. It is one of those miraculous entertainments that achieves its immediate goals and keeps climbing toward a higher summit.

The India of Mother Teresa still exists. Because it is side-by-side with the new India, it is easily seen. People living in the streets. A woman crawling from a cardboard box. Men bathing at a fire hydrant. Men relieving themselves by the roadside. You stand on one side of the Hooghly River, a branch of the Ganges that runs through Kolkuta, and your friend tells you, "On the other bank millions of people live without a single sewer line."

On the other hand, the worlds largest middle class, mostly lower-middle, but all the more admirable. The India of "Monsoon Wedding." Millionaires. Mercedes-Benzes and Audis. Traffic like Demo Derby. Luxury condos. Exploding education. A booming computer segment. A fountain of medical professionals. Some of the most exciting modern English literature. A Bollywood to rival Hollywood.