The Shailesh-tival

In case you didn’t realize, my review from this morning was a joke.

I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday and after all I’d heard about it, it was finally nice to actually form my own opinions on the movie.

First, the basis of the plot.  I won’t give anything away here.  The movie follow the rise to riches of a poor Mumbai, India resident as he tries to become a big winner on India’s version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire.’  The vehicle of the movie is that he is eventually accused of cheating and as he explains how he knew each answer, the audience gets to see yet another chapter of his life.

Unfortunately I thought the plot unfolded way too slowly.  Most of the early chapters of his life, although interesting, just didn’t have enough momentum to keep me interested.  In fact I found myself bored and a little restless for most of the first hour and fifteen minutes.

I also didn’t care for the love story in the movie.  It was just too unrealistic for my taste, and I found it to be too conttrived a method for keeping the random stories tied together.  If you’ve seen Forrest Gump, then I think you’d agree with me that Latika was used a little too much like Jenny.  Secondly, I think that too much emphasis was placed on the main character’s love interest and not enough was placed on his relationship with his brother.  I didn’t completely understand some of the brothers’ actions at the end of the movie and the movie could have easily spent a little more time helping us understand what he was thinking.

One of the more controversial parts of the movie was the depiction of Mumbai’s slums.  Although I’ve been to Mumbai many times, I can’t vouch for how accurate the depiction is, nor whether they focused too much on the slums in the city.  The fact is this, though: The unique culture of slumlife is very real (I suggest watching Mira Nair’s ‘Salaam Bombay!’ if you’re interested in the topic), and the poor in India don’t have the same opportunities for upward mobility as they would in most Western cultures.  The slumlife is a very necessary part of this movie.

Overall, I think the movie was definitely worth watching.  The ‘Millionaire’ gameshow was a very unique way of telling this young man’s story and they managed to keep it interesting while not getting overly repetitive.  I would definitely recommend ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ to everyone out there.

And for the record … when the kid fell in the poop, it was really funny.