Danny Boyle’s much ballyhooed film is a crowd pleasing tale of star crossed lovers searching for connection on the busy streets of Mumbai. Simplistic and sentimental, the dramatic action, which jumps back and forth in time throughout, cribs generously from a variety of sources: Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the musical Annie, Bollywood, Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, Fernando Meirelles’ City of God, and Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay (with an odd nod to August Strindberg’s Miss Julie). The story centers on Jamal, a young Muslim boy, and his older brother, Salim, both orphaned after a violent attack by ravaging Hindus (or so I’m left to assume). A third youngster, the lovely and beautiful Latika, joins the brothers and soon the melodramatics kick into high gear. As a young man some fifteen to twenty years down the road, Jamal works his way onto “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire†(or “Kaun Banega Crorepati,†which appears to be a cultural phenomenon throughout southeast Asia), and the film is structured around how this young, uneducated “chai wallah†utilizes his “hard knock life†as a tatterdemalion to answer enough questions to potentially win 20 million rupees on national television. Each question triggers a flashback and so forth and so on. I’m doing my best not to give too much away except my mild disappointment in this thick slab of populist entertainment.
One could argue that Slumdog Millionaire chronicles India’s economic ascent during the age of globalization, but the film’s lurid portrait of India is painted in oversaturated hues. The film itself is visually busy—unnecessarily so. Everyone is corrupt, filth and degradation cover all most surfaces, and idealistic young love is a crap shoot at best. One thing that intrigued me is that Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy seem to extol western virtues throughout, celebrating a “pick yourself up by the bootstraps†mentality that privileges individual will over the community. Perhaps such notions are also celebrated in India. I’ll be curious to hear what others have to say.