Slumdog Millionaire

Rating R Genre drama Starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor Directed by Danny Boyle Publisher Warner Bros. / Fox Searchlight Pictures

A colourful blast of pure energy, Danny Boyle’s brilliantly compelling Slumdog Millionaire is further solidifying the notion that 2008 features some of the finest motion pictures in a long time. I had thought it would be hard to beat 2007, with the elegantly bleak No Country for Old Men and the sweeping Atonement proving to be among the most captivating cinematic experiences. But having seen Gran Torino, Frost/Nixon, and now Slumdog Millionaire in relatively short order, I can tell you that 2008 is indeed a very cinematically blessed year.

By now you’ve probably heard all about Slumdog Millionaire. Based on the novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup, the film has been sweeping awards shows around the world. It scooped Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. The picture has also made several critics’ top ten lists, ranking first on lists by Richard Roeper, Kyle Smith, and several others.

If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to see Slumdog Millionaire (which can be a tough prospect with its ridiculously limited release), you’re probably wondering if it lives up to all of this hype. As Canada’s last line of defence from bad entertainment and foremost source for insight as to good entertainment, I can happily tell you that Slumdog Millionaire does absolutely and positively live up to the hype.

With forgiveness for my hyperbolic sensibility, Slumdog Millionaire is a radiantly colourful and ceaselessly energetic piece of filmmaking that literally bounces with vibrancy each moment it is on the screen. It is impeccably directed by Boyle, who also granted us the fantastically joyous Millions and the drugged-out classic Trainspotting, and features performances from a magical litany of youngsters. It is stirring, fantastical, superb, bright, witty, upsetting, breathtaking and absolutely beautiful.

For many viewers, Slumdog Millionaire will present their first experience with what can only be described as the real India. The country is as much a star as the actors, with its odd combination of the vile and the lovely. The slums are as undying as the lavish opulence, providing the perfect backdrop to the ultimate rags-to-riches storyline. We have seen India before, mucky and insolvent, in documentaries like the excellent Born Into Brothels and in the extensive discoveries granted us in Ghandi. But we have never seen India like this, vibrating and pulsating with existence despite the trashiness.

So in many ways, Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire decides, richly, to bridge the gap between the two versions of India and provide something out of both locales that is so often forgotten even in our richly blessed lands: hope. In this story, we learn of a young boy born into poverty and endless despair. He’s a thief existing in poverty with no option but to survive or surrender to death. This kid, this version of Oliver, grows up and becomes a young man despite all of the impossibilities thrust in his way.

Jamal (Dev Patel) has survived a life on the streets and, as we find him in the beginning of the movie, he is a contestant on India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. He is in his twenties and his survival to this point has been as much a miracle as anything else that will come to pass in the film. Jamal still loves Latika (Freida Pinto), a girl he has known and survived with since the beginning. And he has a brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), with whom he constantly struggles.

The story is told through flashbacks that explain just how Jamal is getting so many questions correctly on Prem Kumar’s (Anil Kapoor) game show. Suspicious, Kumar calls the police on Jamal after assuming he’s cheating. Jamal is interrogated and more of his life story is revealed much to the initial disbelief of the police officers. Through providence and fate, Jamal’s story proves to be finally gratifying in the most implausible of circumstances.

And that is the beauty of Slumdog Millionaire: everything is improbable but nothing is impossible. Boyle’s use of editing techniques, dazzling blasts of colour, and the impeccable cinematography from Anthony Dod Mantle creates a fantasy world that is all too real. With the backdrop of the slums juxtaposed with the glitz and glamour of a game show, Jamal learns that his life will indeed pay off in the most profound and unlikely of ways. We are all the richer for it.