Synopsis
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”
But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions.
Intrigued by Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show?
When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out…
Movie Reviews:a movie review by: Matt Cale
There are no fairy tales in India, no white knights atop majestic
steeds saving young damsels from despair and harm. But for the
Western world, in which director Danny Boyle is fully ensconced, this
former jewel of the British empire continues to hold romantic allure,
whether as a destination for weary travelers seeking the succor of
religious enlightenment, or as a haven of righteous simplicity.
Indians, then, are more pure, tougher down to their fiber, and for
the cinema of outsiders, this becomes a vacation from reality as much
as an immersion in pale-faced condescension. With Slumdog
Millionaire, the latest privileged assault against genuine suffering
and life as lived, India becomes a nursery rhyme for American nitwits
whose understanding of that mysterious jewel goes no further than the
Taj Mahal or the twang of the sitar.
Horror and deprivation are on display, yes, but not so much that
they interfere with a story of such Dickensian contrivance that
Charles himself would have been embarrassed to have affixed his name
to the cover. Everyone is always where they need to be, always at the
right time. It is a tale of pluck, and destiny, and true love, which
seem wholly out of place in a nation overrun with filth, child
prostitution, and deadly disease. In one fell swoop, poverty itself
is wiped away by loving gifts, granted with ribbons and bows intact
as if from the heavens above. It’s the silliest of fantasies,
made deeply offensive by setting and circumstance.
Jamal (Dev Patel) is the young man of the title, and his victory
on India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire is never in
doubt, so spare me the indignation of having it revealed. This is not
about surprise, after all, but the granting of a wish by Mr. Boyle
and his guilt-ridden European crew. Maybe if this one underprivileged
boy, by virtue of his winsome smile and can-do determination, can
secure a 20 million rupee fortune, the rest of us can be spared from
having to reflect further on the sheer magnitude of India’s
misfortune. For to be poor in India is like poverty almost nowhere
else on earth, and any five minutes of the slums of Mumbai would be
inconceivable for the average American. We must detach, lest we go
mad from disgust.
So Jamal and his brother Salim lose their mother in one of those
confusing religious raids that are surely a daily occurrence in that
country, but are wholly inexplicable to Western minds. But we are not
meant to understand the intricacies of Indian politics or religious
intolerance; the event is but a device to orphan these boys so that
the story may be on its way. And so it is -- hand to mouth, hook or
by crook -- and it is enough to find a place in the city dump to rest
for the night. Quickly, the two are apprehended by a bright-eyed
figure who is the usual stand-in for Oliver Twist’s Fagan,
which means that a surface charm hides a deep, mean-spirited
propensity for exploitation. The boys will sing for their supper,
with all proceeds going to the man who provides it.
At this early stage in the story, it’s fairly watchable,
largely because Boyle spares us no vile street corner, or stench of
raw sewage flowing through the streets. Mumbai is dirty, polluted,
and choking to death on its own lockstep adherence to Social
Darwinism. One cannot imagine the thousands upon thousands of
starving kids roaming at will in India’s cities, but the grime
of life is not Boyle’s end goal. Needless to say, he’s
not searching the soul of Satyajit Ray. While a native Indian would
find small victories in this landscape, and seek to offer them as
grim reminders of a defiant humanism, a foreigner will use the nation
itself as a prop so as to reinforce the Western need for trumped-up,
hollow victories. It’s all or nothing for us, while Ray might
have seen mere bread as a suitable respite.
It’s fitting, then, that the film has to end on a game show,
as much as it might distract the teeming masses from their daily
humiliations. I suppose it acts in much the same way over here. But
to conclude at that moment assumes that all we’ve wanted to see
is a poor lad made rich, because we can imagine him living evermore
with the woman he loves, likely far removed from the slums that gave
him life. We wouldn’t begrudge him the move, though the more
realistic turn is to have Jamal kidnapped and murdered within hours
of cashing his big check. But that wouldn’t have white
suburbanites reaching for their embroidered hankies. And they’re
going to have to be the ones who make this film a hit, so you’d
best flatter their sense of sheltered decency.
So the boys are forced to panhandle, and to Jamal’s horror,
some are knocked unconscious and blinded so as to get more sympathy
on the street. Apparently, this is where the money is. Jamal is
outraged, so he saves his brother and young sweetheart, the stunning
Latika (Freida Pinto). They hop a train to escape Fagan, but Latika’s
grasp is weak, and she is lost. It is from this moment on that she
becomes Jamal’s sole obsession, much to the story’s
downfall. His fanaticism is so annoying, in fact, that we half hope
she’s been sold into prostitution, never to be seen again. Ah,
but she has been sold, though not as a whore (uh-huh, a girl this
appealing would be spared, of course), but as an exotic dancer.
Improbably (remember, Mumbai proper is a city of over 13 million --
with its suburbs, a cool 20 million), Jamal finds her once again, and
is instantly recognized despite the passage of years. It’s
love, dammit, and destiny at that.
Only she will be lost to him once again, this time due to a
brotherly betrayal, which seems unlikely, but must take place in
order to have the necessary change of heart right when the story
needs it. But Jamal never wavers: this is the only woman he has
loved, or will love, and we do not see him even look at another
female the rest of the film. I gather he’s still a virgin,
though his brother has been the one to deflower the woman of his
dreams. Again, I never believe the device of the unmotivated
turncoat, but apparently gushing critics everywhere see that weakness
as a virtue. One among many, it seems.
In case you’re wondering, the story of Jamal’s life is
told through flashbacks, all to explain how this poor, uneducated
slumdog came to know the answers on the game show. The host (and the
police) believe he is cheating, but little do they know it’s
something far more sinister: unholy serendipity. Wouldn’t you
know it, every single question relates to a key moment in Jamal’s
life, which feeds right in to the notion that all of this is
pre-ordained. By whom or what is unclear, though I’d like to
peek behind the curtain of a universe that finds justice in bestowing
a fortune (and a hot girlfriend) on a single kid while leaving
millions to die anonymously and in crippling pain. But that’s
for you, the religious, to reconcile, not I.
Sure, the framing device “works” to bring the story
together, but at what cost? It’s bad enough that a street
urchin is given a chance at greatness (must every story be Rocky,
after all?), but does the final question have to be the one that
involves a key memory of Latika? Hell, even the use of “phone a
friend” strains credulity. He only has his estranged brother’s
number, right? But you see, his brother has released Latika from
captivity just in time, I’m guessing so she can drive furiously
down the street to catch the final show. She happens to have Salim’s
cell phone with her, so she answers that call, though not until she
has been forced to run back to the car for full dramatic impact, and
pick up a split second before the host was going to cut it off. I
mean, are you kidding me? This is what has the critical establishment
hugging itself with glee? Are they really that dependent on
improbable coincidences to get through their days? Oh yeah, they were
the ones who gave Crash the fucking Oscar. Slumdog Millionaire,
though, is enough to make that atrocity as random and free-flowing as
Nashville by comparison.
But if you subscribe to the delusion that love conquers all, and
that the desperately poor are but one quiz show away from sharing
drinks at the country club, or that suffering is to be endured
because there's a pot at the end of the rainbow, this might be the
movie for you. It’s precious, predictable, flat, and as rigged
as wrestling, but it just might be enough to push back Mumbai’s
recent bloody headlines and establish a tourist haven once more. It’s
where dreamers go to dream, and the unfulfilled strive for purpose,
and yes, where musical legends seek instruments and stimulants for
landmark records. It’s where the empty become whole again, not
out of any fealty to logic and good sense, but the misguided notion
that the least among us somehow retain the most dignity, and that
their broken bodies offer release from a materialistic wasteland.
Only the non-poor believe such insipid nonsense, but it keeps
white faces on those wretched streets spending tourist dollars,
standing in awe at what they couldn’t possibly understand, and
wouldn’t care to, if their minds weren’t enfeebled by
starry-eyed myth. Jamal, then, is yet another story to tell; a symbol
of what we’d like to believe about squalor and inhumanity and
the wicked corners we too often try to push aside. It’s how we
live with the random chaos of existence, the accident of birth that
never actually plays fair. But so long as we have a silly grin, a
beautiful face, and the relentless drive to keep hope alive, we’ll
live with the consequences. It’s an utter fraud from start to
finish, but we need it like the air. Teeming with toxins, though it
may be.
Movie Review by Matt Cale
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