The long weekend was one of those nice, slow, n easy ones. Spent the weekend doing pretty much nothing. That’s the best, right!
On Republic Day, we watched the parade on the TV, I made bisi-bele bath, and we all chilled n stuffed our faces. After the mammoth lunch, I was all set to crash but realized that I had committed to watching Slumdog Millionaire with my friends.
Somehow, managed to drag myself out in time to reach the theatre, and I am so glad I did.
I absolutely loved the movie! The performances are terrific – especially the ones by the children. The movie moves quickly from one experience to another, and the direction is terrific. The music is good. Not A R Rahman’s greatest, but it suits the movie. Truly deserves all the nominations / awards it gets.
There are a couple of things that could be better :
- The performance of Freida Pinto is surprisingly wooden – especially considering how much the media have hyped it up.
- The second half of the movie was a bit predictable. Things start to drag on a bit once the children grow up. But that could be just me; I loved those kids in the movie so much.
To all the movie critics harping about exploiting slum-dwellers by Western movie makers, I say everyone has a right to make a movie on the subject they choose. In addition, Danny Boyle has portrayed a reality that few people are strong enough to face. As an audience (especially of Bollywood movies), we are used to an air-brushing of the realities of some people’s existence. We like to see movies with pretty people living / traveling to exotic destinations and solving their petty romantic issues.
Unfortunately, for me, everything looked only too realistic. I have lived in Mumbai, and I have seen that yes! the slums look pretty much as they are depicted in the movie. These are no sets; they are the actual slums. Anyone traveling to Mumbai on the train can see these slums close-up as they approach the city.
The only unrealistic aspect of the movie was that this uneducated hero (Jamal) could speak English, appear on the show, and win a bundle of money. That’s unrealistic! and that’s sad.
In real life, such a boy would have ended up like the hero’s brother – a gangster – living and dying by the gun.
Your final para spoiled the entire review. The entire theme is that Jamal wins the prize money because he had the answers for all those questions in his life experiences.
As regards speaking in English, they do show you that he can speak English in one of the scenes when he give answers in a training class and also when he takes the chair of one of the call center guys.
You are right about Frieda Pinto’s portrayal. So she is not nominated for “Best Actress” anywhere.
🙂
I did not say that I minded the theme. What I feel bad about is the unlikeliness of this happening to poor slum kids. I guess I didn’t express myself fully 🙂
Thanks for the comment. I always love reading other people’s points of view
Thanks, that was a great and neat review:)
Will watch it for sure, very soon…well, let me just say, hope to watch it soon 🙂
🙂
Deepa
Ya, it is definitely worth watching