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Bookmark this pageSlumdog Millionaire (2008)
Director: Danny Boyle
Movie review
From Time Out London
Danny Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a film so upbeat and colourful that, by the time you’re relaying its infectious air of optimism to friends, you could forget that it features orphans, slaughter, organised crime, poverty, enslavement and police brutality in its crowd-pleasing repertoire of suffering and renewal. Hell, it even ends with a get-up-and-dance Bollywood number on the platform of Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus.Shot entirely in India and largely on location, the fabric of the film is winningly realistic. But the story is pure fantasy inspired partly by co-producer Celador’s desire to enshrine its winning creation, the game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ in a movie.Still, Boyle succeeds in leaving these creepy beginnings behind to create a film that’s full of warmth and humanity and forever looks on the bright side of tragedy. The script is a simple conceit: writer Simon Beaufoy (‘The Full Monty’) has ripped up Vikas Swarup’s novel ‘Q&A’ and turned it into a rags-to-riches yarn about Jamal (Dev Patel), a young, slum-born adult in Mumbai who gives such a cracking performance on ‘…Millionaire’, that he’s only one question shy of the 20-million-rupee jackpot. Such unlikely success inspires envy on the part of the show’s creepy host (Anil Kapoor), who invites the police to arrest, question and torture him. This interrogation offers flashbacks of episodes in Jamal’s life that reveal the extraordinary sources of his knowledge and lend Boyle the handy framework of a child becoming an adult against all the odds in an India that’s changing by the hour but still dangerous for any kid on the loose.
Of all Boyle’s mixed work, from the promise of ‘Shallow Grave’ to the embarrassment of ‘Millions’ and the recent experiment of ‘Sunshine’, his new film probably best resembles ‘Trainspotting’: where in that film he found energy, humour and bonhomie in the stupor of heroin addiction, here he takes the impoverished life of a young Indian and spins it into an escapist fairytale steeped in the sights and sounds of the new India. By the time Jamal gets his girl – ultimately and simplistically it’s a romance – and everyone’s tapping their feet, you’ll have forgotten that one of his young friends was blinded and another sold into prostitution. You may also forgive some of the plot’s wilder turns and increasingly erratic jumps in time.
Boyle flirts with realism but never fully buys into it.
He’s too concerned with keeping the mood light and the pace furious. He’s a flashy filmmaker at times, but the real saving grace of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is how Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle go to extreme and pleasing lengths to soak up the colours, people and places of India. The film’s messages – that hard-earned street knowledge can be as valuable as traditional education and, while hardly original, that later success can overcome earlier hardship – are attractive if you’re willing to bite your tongue at the air of positivity. With so much good humour about you can even forgive the film’s bizarre slip from one language to another as young Indian actors give way to a warm, English-language performance from Britain’s Patel, who’s just one of a cast of actors who are as likeable and compelling as the film itself.
Author: Dave Calhoun
Time Out London Issue 2003, 8 - 14 Jan, 2009
User reviews of this film
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- Bill_D said...
- Posted on Jun 12 2009 23:23 A lively, colourful and clever story with excellent camerawork, to be sure, and it's good that contemporary India, a country so on the up, is featured in a mainstream Western film, but I'm surprised the always brief scenes and constant sensationalising haven't annoyed more people without a short attention span.
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- Matthew said...
- Posted on Jun 08 2009 12:11 Amazing!
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- Matthew said...
- Posted on Jun 08 2009 12:11 Amazing!
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- Matthew said...
- Posted on Jun 08 2009 12:11 Amazing!
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- Matthew said...
- Posted on Jun 08 2009 12:09 One of the best films i have ever seen...
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- Rory said...
- Posted on Jun 07 2009 16:55 WOW!
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- Jay grand said...
- Posted on Apr 30 2009 14:47 Most over rated crap I have seen since Titanic. Soapy, narrative, voyeuristic setting, failed cheap tear jerking, low depth of character exploration, awful acting, and a very strong inspiration (read theft) without the talent, from City of dogs and City of men, fantastic brazilian production. Slumdog miliionaire has bored me and made me angry.
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- CAROLE said...
- Posted on Apr 14 2009 14:47 Oddly enough this film made me cringe and shut my eyes and yet left me feeling cold. Poverty Porn : a ridiculous storyline and silly older characters I didnt care about: mixed up with blinding small children and slashing girls faces etc......Bizarre and Horrible. India should be ashamed if this is accurate. 'The Reader' was streets ahead both the story and the acting..
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- Iain said...
- Posted on Apr 13 2009 00:34 Over hyped, I was quite bored. I think those who really love it are responding to the fact that they normally watch American rubbish full of CGI special effects and this was something a bit different. It was OK.
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- Lorna said...
- Posted on Apr 11 2009 16:00 This is one of the best films i have EVER seen! And is a real heart-warmer of a film. 10/10 A MUST SEE!
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- Hannah said...
- Posted on Apr 09 2009 03:13 I loved every second! This film absolutley deserved to win at the Oscars. I was not one bit dissapointed after hearing all the hype.
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- hannah said...
- Posted on Apr 03 2009 10:22 i love this film! i wanna go and watch again!
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- Alex said...
- Posted on Apr 01 2009 11:19 Amazing film!!!
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- holly said...
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Posted on Apr 01 2009 09:23
this was a good film,
but not the feel good film! - Report as inappropriate
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- George said...
- Posted on Mar 31 2009 14:28 Over-hyped dross. The children were wonderful, but the adult actors, in particular the two leads, were shocking. They were about as authentic as a Chicken Tikka Massala. Once again Danny Boyle turns a decent and thoughtful novel into an easy to digest fast-food flick for Hollywood to devour.
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Cast & crew
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Madhur Mittal full cast
Rated: 15
Duration: 110 mins
UK Release: Jan 23 2009
US Release: Nov 13 2008
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