FilmJudge - Slumdog Millionaire

REVIEW

Slumdog Millionaire
2009
Certificate: 15 | Runtime: 120 | Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor

Jamal Malik (Patel) is one question away from winning 20 million Rupees on the Indian version of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'. But because he's a poor kid from the slums, with no education and a rubbish job, everyone assumes he is cheating somehow. So he is arrested and tortured by a police inspector (Irrfan Khan), to reveal how he knows the answers. But what Jamal reveals is that behind each answer is part of the tragic story of his life which has brought him to this point.

In the time between me seeing Slumdog Millionaire and typing this review a lot has happened. After winning four Golden Globes - including Best Picture (Drama) - the film has gone from being the underdog at the Oscars to the favourite. This small British and Indian collaboration is now the favourite for the biggest film prize on the planet. That is a big deal. And yet the aforementioned time difference has also allowed me the luxury to think about the film a bit more. And, while I think that it does many things right - and I can completely see why it's now the frontrunner - I also reckon that the hype is now starting to suppress any critical thought whatsoever.

Slumdog Millionaire is all about the release. It tells the tale of someone who has lived a tragic, miserable and often tortuously difficult life, but who is now on the brink of being rewarded for persevering with so much pain and hurt. Therefore, if the film failed to satisfy the audience with the way in which this good fortune comes about, it would fail. Thankfully, it works wonders in this respect. The final 20 minutes or so are so gloriously feelgood it's no wonder the film appeals to AMPAS and other voters alike. And yet how the film gets to this point is actually rather less convincing in places.

As Jamal works his way through the questions, we are transported back to earlier incidents in his life; incidents so significant and so relevant to the questions he just happens to be asked, that he'd never forget the answers in a million years. To give away one of the more minor examples, he remembers the name of a famous Indian actor because he once swam through a cesspool of faeces to get his autograph. Stuff like that, and much worse. And there are essentially two main prongs to these flashbacks; one involving his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal), and the other Latika (Pinto) - a girl he has loved from a young age. The problem, however, is that these two crucial relationships are really rather thinly sketched. The romance with Latika is boiled down to about three brief encounters, while Salim's development is cluttered and hurried. Jamal's mother is briefly involved in all this as well, and to startlingly little effect. The film works beautifully as a fairytale with a glorious finale; it works less well as a study of its central character and the people who mean the world to him. This makes the journey less enjoyable than the destination, and lessen's the overall dramatic impact.

Patel makes a strong debut. Oddly, the role of Jamal doesn't require great range because he's got a stiff upper lip thing going on. But Patel is likeable and convey's Jamal's determination well. Mittal makes the most of the few scenes he has, and Khan puts in some solid work as well. However, the scenes with Patel and Pinto do lack chemistry - something that should be bursting from every pore. And one of the best performances in the piece comes from Anil Kapoor, as 'Millionaire' host Prem Kumar. He fantastically demonstrates the character's showy and almost flamboyant public persona in contrast to his darker and more unpleasant private one. Prem on and off camera are two very different people.

Boyle has assembled himself a good team. A.R. Rahman's score - which fuses Western and Indian pop music styles - is inventive and exciting, and Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography nicely captures the bleak appearance of the Mumbai slums while somehow maintaining an unusually varied colour palate. And with a couple of intense chases and the scenes on the quiz show itself being rather exciting, Chris Dickens's editing is also worthy of a mention.

I think some have been unnecessarily cruel to Slumdog Millionaire; sometimes trying to go against the grain just for the sake of it. The film does have a darker side, but to say as some have that it fails because it tries to blend an uplifting story with City of God-type realism is going too far; the film never even gets close to territory that desperate and harsh. If you want to criticise it there are problems that exist, as I have suggested. But because it succeeds so spectacularly at reaching its ultimate destination - a wonderfully feelgood ending - it can be forgiven for some of the bumps and potholes along the way.

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