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Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Director: Danny Boyle

Time Out rating

Average user rating

193 reviews

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 2009-01-06 10:30:16

Time Out London Issue 2003, 8 - 14 Jan, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Lewis said...

Posted on Jan 11 2009 19:15 This film was fantastic. Loved the storyline and the acting (particularly from the younger cast) was great. Definitely worth watching. Going to be the best film of 2009

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Dan said...

Posted on Jan 11 2009 17:03 Poor film. Save yourself the money and stay at home with a takeaway. Very very poor.

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ridecabs said...

Posted on Jan 11 2009 16:40 thanks for keeping it real.Danny great film .if you have never been to india go and see for your self how real the film is .

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PERFECT DAY said...

Posted on Jan 11 2009 12:08 Brother Usman. Take a chill pill my dear friend. I need you to seek happiness in your life. Now then, my dear friend. Go and buy some flowers and take them to your lovely mother and plant a big affectionate kissypoo on her rosey cheeks. You will feel a whole lot better. Lets do lunch and "talk" about movies. We got a deal, dude?
God Bless you. You intelligent warm, wonderful specimen of humanity. Peace on message. Thank you Time Out for acting as a conduit for me to meet my idol.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jan 10 2009 19:06 for the perfect ignorant snobs
mira nairs salaam bombay and street kids
saleem langre par mat roo
and its poteic insouciance of both kuds and mumbai affect
nihalanis -police corruption and anti muslim rioting
they make boyle look like a cinematic carbuncle who needs to be excised
as he indeed has made the worst movie on these subjects brilliantly portrayed prior to his dizzy adventures with a shaky camera -
by indian cinema itself who might turn some crap but make far better movies the boyle does too
mr pd -rise above your bulldog snobbish ineptitude and your tiny mind with the flagrant ignorance of india and its arts to actually first imbue some sense before advising the incompetent boyle to venture into mumbai again
regards and merci to both you and upon your perfect soul

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Dave said...

Posted on Jan 10 2009 16:41 you people all need to get lives u sad wierdos

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sofia said...

Posted on Jan 10 2009 15:21 Loved it!!! i cried at the same moments

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USMAN KHAWAJA said...

Posted on Jan 10 2009 04:30 ROTTEN BOILED EGG TOUR OF TAJ MAHAL -
if you thought bolly made senseless formulaic pastiches then go watch this patronising and condescending dis- jointed pot boiler fro danny the boiler who makes the narrative jump giddily from one gutter to another .
he cannot even stage a convincing anti muslim riot and the street kids look like a parody of nairs salaam bombay with the worst dialogue delivery i have seen in a recent movie .
i widh he saw nihalinis dev and nairs SB and then had a vision to mix it with fiennes quiz show .
but this is a dreadfully bemusing and flawed look where two kids fall off the roof of a speeding train conveniently in the front yard of taj mahal without enduring a single bruise and then start giving intro tours to obese western tourists in english language while they have never attended a day of even a slum school .
this is indian massala gone wrong with item songs in the most inappropriate places like the mumbai central and colors which are as gaudy as holi gone astray ,
the highrises and trains are all shot by a cameraman with angles which make one suspicious the technician was cross eyed or suffering from a hangover ,
the direction looks as if boyle was stoned because india has dirt cheap cannabis and all indians are portrayed as callous cheating contemptuous cultural buffoons ,
they abuse and disfigure kids who go around shooting gang dons point blank and the mobiles never seem to stop ringing ,
was it meant to be surreal or a satire as it comes out as a superfluous self indulgent look at the indian culture which is as dull and technically flawed as brick lane if not worst ,the lurid plot of two brothers who drea of riches and the fairy tale setting of who wants to be a millionaire is just as despicable as the consumer market in its worst metaphor but the script is just as schizoid as it forces clueless and tasteless jokes without context into a ludicrous tale.
the chat between the anchor and the contestant in mens room is so badly staged it was worst then the excretions being emitted ,
while the semi winner is flagged for fraud and tortured by a caricature cop played by irfan khan he tells us his autobiography which is as bizarrely implausible as the most melodramatic and misplced bolly drama possible to conceive .next time please study ivorys indian endeavours and leans passage to indiabefore indulging in a cliched contemptuous look at india from a anglo-saxon perspective where india becomes an extended sham slum -no wonder all the millions of europeans got kicked out for that mental ineptitude while the hindus and muslims might be incompatible but have flourished together for 1000 years .
before the rains by sivan is a classic compared to this crap .
and even fashion and wednesday and hulla bol are far better then this -
the fact this is even considered for any awards is a hilarious exercise in making mediocre bollywoods look like classics as they are indeed mor sensible the this trash from the gutters of mumbai.
as for salaam bombay which is the obvious inspiration for this moronic monstrosity even coparing the two is cinematic blasphemy .
- jbz7879

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PERFECT DAY said...

Posted on Jan 09 2009 20:39 Danny Boyle has chosen the harder option for this film. Far from being a feel-good film, it shows the harsh realities of life for the poor kids of Mumbai. Even the toned down scenes in the slums are pretty hard to watch. The police brutality and lack of political good-will is evident for all to see. It is not a nice film to watch, but, however, it is gripping and entertaining. Dev Patel is excellent in his role.
I would now like to see Danny Boyle go back to Mumbai and shoot a documentary on these slums and shame the Indian Government into taking first steps to put things right.

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andrew perry said...

Posted on Jan 09 2009 18:22 was pretty shite like

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Andrew said...

Posted on Jan 08 2009 10:34 Those expecting to see a hard-hitting and corrosive social commentary on life in the slums of Mumbai will be (happily) disappointed. Instead we have in Slumdog Millionaire a magnificent, kaleidoscopic explosion of energy, passion and creativity, all underpinned by a narrative of truly Dickensian proportions. Danny Boyle has the same deft touch directing children that Truffaut had, not to mention the same love and understanding of cinema. This is great stuff - go see it!! (Cynics need not apply).

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Panda said...

Posted on Jan 07 2009 11:41 I saw Slumdog at a preview screening last night and have to disagree about the two-dimensional characters. Some of the children were actually recruited from the slums and as a result are far from two-dimensional. The editing isn't fast and furious to 'manufacture so-called tension' but to give you a feel of the boys life in the Mumbai slums at their level. It takes you into their world. The one thing I would say is that I have no clue why the posters are advertising the film as the feelgood film of the decade. In my opinion, feel good it isn't. Unless torture, murder and the abuse of children is your idea of a good time. But I do think it's a great film and well worth seeing.

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Sticky said...

Posted on Jan 06 2009 20:21 I was in New York 2 months ago and, as I had just returned from working with street children in India, I was really looking forward to seeing this, with all the positive hype it was and is still getting. However, I came out of the cinema feeling really disappointed, even though I've always liked most of Danny Boyle's films.
The biggest problem is that virtually all the characters are two-dimemsional, black and white. There's no shading, so it's hard to really believe in the characters and thus the story, even when you try your hardest to suspend disbelief. The story itself is pretty preposterous and, as for Danny Boyle, he should have slowed it down a bit. The editing is so bullet-speed (to manufacture so-called tension and exictement) in many parts making it difficult to contemplate what's exactly happening. Finally, the older Jamal (Dev Patel) is so wooden, he could do with some acting lessons. Having said all this, you should still see it for yourself and I'm sure you'll fall for it, like nearly everyone else has. Or you may just want to wait for the far superiror "Rachel Getting Married" or "Milk".

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