"Slumdog Millionaire" may be this year's "Pan's Labyrinth", or "Life is Beautiful". A movie from overseas, directed by--oddly--Danny Boyle ("Sunshine", "28 Days Later", "Trainspotting"), that transcends where it's from. Forget the subtitles, forget the fact that it takes place in Mumbai. This is a story about people that we've seen in our own backyards--even if they are tucked away in the bad neighborhoods. We've seen the rags-to-riches stories.
And in this case, like in our sometimes, we blur the lines between our heroes and our villains. Who is the villain in this story? It centers around two brothers, Jamal and Salim, who could be mistaken for Cain and Abel at times. Salim being the Cain character--looking after his younger brother, but in a violent way, taking the money while Jamal takes the heart. But both want the same thing--happiness. As they grow up together, through the slums of India, manipulating lazy tourists and taking advantage of their own bad luck. Jamal never forgets a girl that they allowed into their "posse", though Salim wants her out of it since it seems to cloud the road that he's trying to pave--which is riches.
It turns out, Jamal is the one who winds up in the basket of riches, when he's on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". But because of jealousy and envy, the host (who had won the most before our beloved protagonist), thinks the kid is cheating, and has him arrested.
That's basically how the story begins. The movie weaves in and out of the past and present, of Jamal and Salim's modest beginnings, to their adolescent lives where things get a little stickier, and illustrates a side of life in India that maybe we Americans don't always see (they've got their own version of South Central, for example). But by the time of the climax of the film, we get a good idea of what this film is about--
There are two kinds of destiny. There's the destiny that fate gives us, and there's the destiny that we make ourselves. Obviously the former sometimes helps the latter. But, in the case of Salim, there is the case of being the victim of the latter--while in the case of Jamal, there's the hero buried deep in the former. Or maybe it's a bit of both.
Either way, this film hits on all cylinders of character development, and by the time we get to the final question for our guy, Jamal, we can't help but root for the guy, and we want destiny to work out for him.
This is simply one of the best executed films of the year, and it deserves the accolades it is getting. It should get some awards, but it shouldn't be forgotten--this isn't a flavor of the month. This is a film to cherish, even if some of the logic doesn't always work.
out of