I gotta admit, reading a lot of these made me go, “Awww,” a couple of million times. Someone decided to ask kids some questions about marriage, relationships, and so forth. Sure it’s like an episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things, but is that so bad? The answers to the questions are absolutely adorable- not just in their humor but their tireless innocence. So check it out, it’ll be a hoot.

I just watched Slumdog Millionaire, and it was easily the best film I’ve seen in a very long time. The visuals are breathtaking, the editing, the production– all first notch. And yes, it absolutely deserves all the accolades that it’s gotten thus far. I feel like I have to break this down into parts. So here goes.

The story

To keep it simple, the story revolves around a boy named Jamal who manages to get himself onto the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The question however, is how does he manage to get answer after answer correctly, and the story weaves his story into back-and-forth cuts with the present where the bucolic Indian police are torturing him. Within this is also his old friend Latika, who was one of the slumdogs with his brother Salim, but in a fragmented manner ends up as a love interest later in Jamal’s life.

Direction

By far the strength of this movie– Danny Boyle does a phenomenal job of not just tying the sharp screenplay with the looks and feels of India. There’s a rabid energy that emanates from each frame during the shots shot outside (as opposed to the studio where Jamal is on the show), and sheer vibrance even within the disparate settings of the slums. However Boyle does show some restraint in painting all of India as a slum as many Western filmmakers have done, and also shows the call-centers where many people work, which are just as modern as any in America. (From personal experience, those Dell buildings in Bangalore are a whole lot nicer than that I saw in OKC.)

Another huge triumph by Boyle is getting an amazing amount of emotion and honesty out of the child actors that play Jamal, Salim and Latika during various periods of history. It’s a bit odd to note that the child actors, in my opinion, were better than most of the adults (save for Irfan Khan as a police inspector). Considering that they make up a majority of the film, the emotional highs and lows are fully palpable and Boyle makes sure that the audience is with him every step of the way.

Acting

As mentioned earlier, my favorite actors in the film were the children. Not since The Sixth Sense have I seen so much from such young actors. And we’re not talking about kids who are playing cute– we’re talking about some seriously heavy lifting, acting-wise, and they pull it off with aplomb. Aside from that Irfan Khan gives yet another strong but subdued performance as the police inspector who’s interrogating Jamal about how a slumdog knows the answers to some very difficult question. It’s a role that will not get any acclaim- but Khan impressed me the first time as Gogul’s father in The Namesake.

Dev Patel does admirably and keeps his acting simple. Though most of his scenes are with short dialogue and furtive looks, he avoids the pitfalls of overplaying the melodrama that the script could have fallen into. This is in contrast to Anil Kapoor, a veteran Bollywood actor, who is trying very hard to not slip into his old Bollywood tricks of flat characters. He starts off slimy, and stays slimy, through the end. No arc, no nothing. He sticks with the lines, and doesn’t interpret them to be a fully realized character. I would’ve preferred Amitabh Bachchan, the original host of the show back in India.

Freida Pinto (adult Latika) is also used sparingly, and for good reason. Her line readings were sufficient but not overly impressive. But, and I have to say this– she sure is stunning.

Production

From the score by A.R. Rahman to the quick cuts in editing to the brilliant cinematography, everything about this movie’s production clicked. It felt like one cohesive unit, all striving towards the same message– as movies should be. Rahman, already an award winner in India many times over for his scores, manages yet again to keep the movie firmly based in India in its organic nature, without resorting to the typical sitar-and-tabla whinings that you may hear at your local Indian restaurant during dinner hour. It is breathtaking, and hearing it in a theater makes it all the more impressive.

Final thoughts

Slumdog Millionaire is definitely on my ‘buy when it comes out’ list. The film manages to actually make one laugh, cry, and everything in between without coming off as formulaic or cheesy– a difficult feat. Personally I remember seeing many of these same children when I lived in India and how they begged– it was painful for me at first, but then I had to learn to turn a blind eye in order to continue on with my days. This movie brought it all back, and the true disparity that millions of Indian children live in. And it’s in the despair that Slumdog Millionaire scores well because it gives hope to the human spirit and of never giving up. Watch it.