Slumdog Millionaire (2009)

I saw this movie back in the Christmas season last year with some reluctance. Were it not for a good friend edging me on I probably would not have bothered. I incorrectly sensed that it was just another drippy foreign film about drippy people living on the edge and getting lucky.

Boy was I wrong.

This is such a smart, cleverly woven story with a classic twist--reminding me of Dickens--and all the stuff we love about life, but what's really striking--and I just watched this twice on DVD--is the precious love that is expressed here.

Lump in throat anyone?

Goosey bumps, too?

I just lap it up. Call me a sucker--but I had to re-play the last two minutes over and over again--where our hero brushes his sweetie's scarred cheek...and you either already know or will know the rest. It just kills me every time.The quintessential message is: LOVE OVER $$, GOLD, whatever, ANY DAY!

Amen.

Do not buy this DVD if you are interested in the special features listed on the box and at the Amazon site. This DVD does not contain the making of, the deleted scenes or the audio commentary. The special features contain only trailers for 4 other movies. The movie is great, but the main reason I bought the DVD was to watch the making of. This false advertisement was a complete disappointment.

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I think this movie is a true masterpiece of cinema. So beautifully woven together the music, the cinematography, the screenplay, the performances, the art direction, the love story. It all works together on so many levels and this movie touches me more deeply than most of the movies I've seen in my life. I went to see it like five times in the movie theater and I felt as if I had traveled to another place without even leaving my seat! It's that much of a cinematic experience. A LOVELY PIECE OF WORK!

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I have read a few reviews that bashed Slumdog, and though I see a point to them, I LOVE this film. I have lived in Faridabad ( just outside of Deli), and have firsthand seen some of the things the film touched on. In the spirit of Mira Nair, Boyle opens ones eyes to this incredible country, but he doesn't sugar coat things like most Bollywood films ( which are basically musicals, some with depth others that are laughable but enjoyable nonetheless).

Slumdog divulges what real India is like: a fight for survival, but one that has moments of beauty in it as well. Again, MOMENTS. The amount of children MUTILATED and forced by parents and others to work is disgusting. It is beyond belief. I was in the Deli area, and that has nothing on Calcutta or some of the bad areas of Mumbai.

And despite this, one can see a beauty in these people that simply does not exist in the West. One brief scene ( SPOILER) in the movie when Dev is about to play the last round of Millionare, a woman on the street taps on his window and says 'go and win it all'. THIS type of genuine 'I'm happy for you', aka namaste, aka respect exists amongst the dire poverty.

And then Slumdog dives into the Muslim-Hindu tension. In the kashmir region, fighting is horrendous. This type of confusion, dislike, and sometimes hatred exists between these two religions, and now with the recent terrorist attacks, things aren't looking too good.

Slumdog Millionaire shows how hard working, diligent, determined, and driven many ( most) Indians are in their fight to survive and feed themselves/their families. The main character has to do this from when he was born, which is a sad reality for many infants/kids there.

THE FILM IS ARTISTIC, FAST PACED AND TYPICAL BOYLE STYLE, WITH A GREAT SOUNDTRACK.

Please watch it, and then DO something about what you have seen. Go and visit the country. It will change your life.

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I normally can't abide Bollywood, with its predictable plots, overblown sentimentality, and saccharin endings (in which everybody dances). But this movie was a marriage made in heaven -the realism of growing up in the slums of Bombay plus the all-important final dance number.

In all honesty, I found parts of this movie hard going, and not just because of the violence. Bombay, from the perspective of the have-nots, is something straight out of a nightmare (Charles Dickens, eat your heart out). The only reason the beginning of the film wasn't overwhelming was because Jamal's childhood was meted out in flashbacks, which gave us an occasional rest as well as the assurance that everything might work out after all.

I have to say that even knowing that a happy ending was probably in sight (this was an Indian film, after all), Slumdog Millionaire was nail-bitingly tense. There were moments when I actually wondered if our hero would get the quiz-show answer right, or if he would indeed "get the girl," as heroes generally do. But afterwards, when all was said and done, the images that remained with me were not of the happy dancing masses, but of the tattered, abandoned children of Bombay. It seems that Bollywood is finally growing up.

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