Final Answer is that Millionaire Passes the Test
Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is one question away from immortality. This kid from the Mumbai slums has accomplished the impossible, and if he can answer the next question correctly he’ll walk away from the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” with 20 million rupees to do with as he sees fit.
Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in Fox Searchlight's Slumdog Millionaire
But officials smell something fishy, the show’s popular and egotistical host (Anil Kapoor) calling in the police to arrest the young man before filming on the climactic query can commence. The inspector in charge (Irfan Khan) is highly suspicious, forcing Jamal to take him question by question through his original answers hoping to discover just how it is this poor, undereducated orphan could go on a program like this and manage to do so well.
It is during this interrogation that the truth comes out, but it isn’t the one the aggressive detective expects. Jamal’s story is a tale of woe and hardship starting with he and his manipulative older brother Salim’s (Madhur Mittal) multiple dances with death as children, their brush with the brutal machinations of a street thug looking to do them harm and the hardscrabble existence the two scrapped out along the country’s railroads. Here is where he also learns of the mysterious and beautiful Latika (Freida Pinto), the love of Jamal’s life and the key to unlocking his potential newfound fame and fortune.
Danny Boyle’s (Sunshine), co-directing with India filmmaker Loveleen Tandan, Slumdog Millionaire has been generating massive amounts of positive buzz and Oscar talk ever since its Telluride Film Festival debut. An unabashed crowd-pleaser, everyone who sees it just can’t stop talking about the film, Jamal’s almost Dickensonian saga enough to make even the most hardened and cynical of hearts weep in outright euphoric joy.
I don't want to rain on the drama's exuberantly joyous parade, but I think it might be time to tone down the hyperbole (if that's even possible). While a strong picture dynamically told, there is something ever-so slightly amiss when the things I remember most about the picture are the two men trying to lay waste to the hero’s dreams then the protagonist struggling to make them real.
Don’t misunderstand. Patel is a nice enough actor and he makes about as much out of writer Simon Beaufoy’s (The Full Monty) script, based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup, as is probably possible. The problem is that he spends much of the film as nothing more than a bizarrely vacant wallflower, enduring hardships without ever seeming to react to them in any way that’s viscerally satisfying. In fact, it isn’t until the climactic third act stretch that the young actor to come alive in any sort of meaningful way, and as much as these superbly rendered moments admittedly pulled at my heartstrings I can’t say they did to craft any sort of lasting impact.
Which is the exact opposite case with both Kapoor and Khan, each man so fascinating I couldn’t help but want to know more about the both of them. Complicated, richly layered, full of engaging quirks and idiosyncrasies that constantly kept me on my toes, I found anticipating their reactions to Jamal’s twisted, multifaceted saga to be virtually unpredictable, part of me almost wishing Boyle someday decides to make a new movie focusing solely on them.
I shouldn’t be so harsh. Slumdog Millionaire breezes by so quickly you almost don’t even realize it’s come to an end. The filmmaker deftly weaves between past, present and a (potentially) hopeful future with such energetic skill it is impossible not to be impressed. Bouncing between both digital and standard photography, gifted cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (The Last King of Scotland) has arguably shot the most visually stunning film of the year, while editor Chris Dickens (Hot Fuzz) weaves all the overlapping narratives with so much apparent ease his hand in all this becomes almost invisible.
But it is the tenderly beating heart at the center that ends up making the picture ultimately resonate with such passionately winning glory. Somehow the director avoids any sort of saccharine or syrupy aftertaste, instead infusing things with honestly achieved emotional resonance that crosses cultural barriers to become universally splendiferous. Even though I never liked him near as much as I felt I needed to, I still wanted to see Jamal and Latika break their chains of sorrow and find some way to be together, the director using every nuance in his ample bag of tricks to stave off disappointment.
Personally, I still find Boyle’s Trainspotting, Millions and 28 Days Later to all be better examples of the filmmaker's unquestionable storytelling skills, but if Slumdog Millionaire is finally the one that forces everyone else to also see it, too, I’m not about to complain. As for all that Academy Award nonsense? What I can say is that I think audiences are going to eat the picture up, the heart on its sleeve beating so strongly and with such magnetic fervor I just don’t see how anyone will admit to not enjoying it, and as far as final answers are concerned I can’t think of a better one than that.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
Additional Links
