SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE Fox Searchlight/ Warner Bros. Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten Grade: A- Directed by: Danny Boyle, co-directed by Loveleen Tandan Written By: Simon Beaufoy from Vikas Swarup’s novel “Q&A” Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan Screened at: Dolby88, NYC, 10/23/08 Opens: November 12, 2008 “Trainspotting” director Danny Boyle’s rag-to-riches tale, tracking the trials and tribulations of a pair of Mumbai slum-dwellers—one of whom taken in by the gangster world while the other tries his hand at “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire—is an epic tale both in the strict use of the term as a story of a family’s progress and as a major undertaking worthy of film awards. It’s a sprawling story that benefits from cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantell’s capturing of the incessant movement sand boundless energy in the largest city on the South Asian continent, while taking advantage of a group of performers whose amazing yarns do not challenge audience credibility. We receive a tension-filled account that crosses genres of gangster movie, comedy, and romance. Charles Dickens would be more than happy with the Danny Boyle’s superb product, which benefits from Simon Beaufoy’s rich screenplay adapted from Vikas Swarup’s novel “Q&A.” Scripter Simon Beaufoy does take liberties with the novel, which in Vikas Swarup’s imagination tells of an orphaned, uneducated waiter from Mumbai who gets a chance to appear on the TV show “Who Will Win a Billion?” but is thrown into jail for allegedly cheating on the quiz show. Somehow that amount gets knocked back to just twenty million rupees (a mere $401,000 US) but a sum that would go much further in Indian than in Manhattan. The novelist’s character Ram now becomes Jamal, who is played as a young, cautious adult by Dev Patel and as a spirited tyke by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar. Filmed on location in India and starring Indian-British actor Dev Patel, “Slumdog Millionaire” has at least one scene that pays homage to the Danny Boyle’s well-known worst toilet in Scotland. Aside from that there is little here on the kind of vulgar level that would appeal to teen audience members who’d refuse to see anything that doesn’t imitate the likes of “Knocked Up,” “Role Models,” and “Superbad.” You come away from this picture with a vivid view of the India that tourists rarely see—a vivid, colorful, kaleidoscopic view of some of the fifty percent of Mumbai’s nineteen million residents who live in slums the like of which you’d not find in the poorest areas of the U.S. (The production notes tell us that the government regularly wants to flatten the slums to make room for livable housing, but that many of the residents, fearing a loss of the sense of community that they enjoy now, reject New Delhi’s pleas.) Briefly put, the gimmick is this. Jamal appears on the popular TV quiz and asked questions that could net him from one thousand rupees to twenty million. Each time he answers such queries as “Who is the third member of Dumas’ ‘The Three Musketeers’? and “Whose face appears on the U.S. one hundred dollar bill?” the producers of the program and especially the egotistical moderator, Prem (Anil Kapoor) refuse to believe that an uneducated guy could possibly know these answers. Jamal proves to us in the audience in flashbacks, however, that there is a basis in his life’s experiences that afforded him the correct responses. Book learning is not everything. One of the great ironies is that Jamal’s motive for becoming a contestant has little to do with the money he could win and a lot to do with his romantic fantasies. This might not be entirely implausible if the young man were rich, but we see from his experiences in Mumbai’s worst slum that money could mean a lot more to him than a chance to buy clothes at Neiman Marcus. After the child Jamal and his brother Salim lose their mother in a Hindu vs. Muslim riot, they, together with seven-year-old Latika (Rubina Ali) join up with a Fagin-like character who runs a school for petty criminals in a remote area. The head of the school is greedy and vicious enough to blind one beggar, reasoning that this will bring in double the money from him. While Latika stays on in the institution, Salim and Jamal run away. During the years they are in exile, Jamal gains enough life experience to answer the questions on the show when he reaches the age of eighteen. Jamal carries a torch for his childhood sweetheart, Latika—seen later as a beautiful young adult (Freida Pinto). He determines to find her and take her with him into the sunset. The most wildly comedic parts are few but are worth waiting for. In one scene, while scores of youngsters run to a landing helicopter to see a noted actor, young Jamal is locked inside the outhouse, from which he escapes by holding his nose, diving in, and escaping through an opening in the ground. His arrival at the actor’s side clears the crowd. In another the young brothers Salim and Jamal become impromptu guides outside the Taj Mahal, giving tourists their own version of the truth—such as when one bemused traveler believes that Mumtaz, who received the gift of the Crown Palace as a token of Shah Jahan’s love, died in childbirth. “Oh yes,” replies the youthful tour guide. “She died in a traffic accident on the way to the hospital.” Given that Mumbai has nineteen million residents, the filming must have been a nightmare. We wonder how Victoria Station got cleared to allow for a rousing dance that scores of extras participated in during the end credits, culminating in their ascending into both trains. An even greater miracle is the acting from mostly non-professional thesps under the age of eleven, who spend as much time racing toward or away from experiences they won’t forget as they do with chatting. Consider that this film will likely be nominated, for its vivid cinematography, a pic that shows non-tourist India—the horrors of police torture inflicted on Jamal by officials who is sure he is cheating (like, how?) and of the horrendous cruelty of adults who will stop at nothing to exploit child labor for petty crimes, even gouging out the eyes of one unfortunate tyke. English is spoken almost throughout, but when the dialogue adds a few words of Marathi, the subtitles appear mercifully around the middle of the screen rather than at the bottom. Those players from the Nets sitting in front of you will not block your vision.Rated R. 120 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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