Part of the joy of watching Slumdog Millionaire, winner for Best Picture of 2008, is the cleverness of its premise. A young man from the slums of Mumbai has made it to the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He is so successful at answering questions, amassing winnings of 10 million rupees, that he is taken into custody after the first day of his appearance on the show and questioned--well, tortured, really--about how he managed to know all of the answers. What follows is a series of flashbacks based upon his correct answers, allowing viewers to see the remarkable set of circumstances that has provided him with the knowledge to succeed on the game show.
Structurally, the film's narrative is told through that series of chronological flashbacks, which means that each of the three major characters is portrayed by actors at different ages. Jamal Malik, the contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, is the sensitive younger brother who witnesses a series of rather horrific events in his young life, including the murder of his mother, his brother's shooting of the man who once made them into beggars, even the abuse of the girl whom he has always loved. As the grown Jamal, Dev Patel is very solid, particularly in the scenes with Freida Pinto, who plays the grown Latika, the girl who was orphaned at the same time as Jamal and his brother and who has experienced her own series of misadventures.
I find it interesting that the last half hour or so of the film--no, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you--offers a rather dramatic shift in tone from the rest of the film. Some of the twists are movie cliches, to be sure, such as the part where the beautiful girl winds up in the clutches of the mobster, but the filmmakers have taken these kinds of moments with which we are familiar and given them new life by providing a different locale and a different set of characters for us to follow. I do believe that most of the praise for Slumdog Millionaire comes from the fact that, despite all of the serious events that occur throughout this film, there are also moments that allow us to feel a sense of hope. Don't be mistaken, though. There are some very gruesome moments depicted here, and more than a few of the patrons in the theater when I've seen this film have made their discomfort loudly known.
Director Danny Boyle, still probably best known for Trainspotting, has managed to coax some remarkable performances from his very young cast. Patel, who anchors the film, is only 18 years old, but he already seems destined for a long career. Pinto is quite effective as well, but as the victim throughout the film of many older men, she must convey more with her expressions than with her dialogue. As Jamal's older brother Salim, Madhur Mittal builds nicely upon the performances of the two boys who play Salim at younger ages. Boyle's casting director, Loveleen Tandan, has managed to find mostly nonprofessionals to fill these roles, and she deserves a great deal of credit for the success of the film, thanks to the energy that each of the nine young performers bring to Slumdog Millionaire.
I've seen this film twice now, once before Christmas and now again in the new year, and each time I have been swept up in the drama that unfolds on the screen. This is a particularly engrossing film. Anyone who tends to dislike films in foreign locations or non-American or unknown actors or a few subtitles here and there should be taken to see Slumdog Millionaire because I suspect it will change attitudes about all of those traits that tend to be seen as deficits. The editing is fast-paced, and the look of the film itself is rather spectacular. I must also mention the music by A.R. Rahman. The cast appears in a musical number entitled "Jai Ho" (a song you should download if you already haven't) that is straight out of any number of Bollywood films, and it's a highlight of the movie. The second time I saw the film, I paid more attention to the soundtrack and realized just how much it assists in maintaining the pace of the film.
Wall-E is still my favorite film of 2008, and Milk is still the film that I most admired, but Slumdog Millionaire ranks high on either of those lists ("favorite" or "most admired"). It manages to give us a view of a different world, one with which we are not familiar but one which quickly becomes intriguing to us, and it presents that most hackneyed of plot devices, the boy who will do anything to win the love of a girl, yet does so in a way that makes us care about the fate of the couple. It manages to provide us with a vision of the depths to which people sink when they are faced with poverty, but it also gives a sense that we are able to overcome that poverty, to make ourselves into better people than our financial situations would suggest. How intriguing that a film set in India and directed by an Englishman should represent those rather quintessentially American values.
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