Posted in: Yemen Observer
Written By: Observer Staff
Article Date: Apr 4, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British movie based on the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. The movie was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009, and won eight, the most for any film in 2008, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song. It also won five Critics’ Choice Awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film.
Most Western reviewers were purely positive about the movie. For example, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film four out of four stars, stating that it is, “a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating.”
Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern termed Slumdog Millionaire “the film world’s first globalized masterpiece.” Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post noted that “this modern-day ‘rags-to-rajah’ fable won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, and it’s easy to see why.
With its timely setting of a swiftly globalizing India and, more specifically, the country’s own version of the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire TV show, combined with timeless melodrama and a hardworking orphan who withstands all manner of setbacks, Slumdog Millionaire plays like Charles Dickens for the 21st century.”
Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young man, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) from the slums of Mumbai. Through luck Jamal appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And also through luck, or a stroke of genius makes it to the, 20,000,000 rupees question, the highest prize achievable. Unfortunately many do not believe his good fortune and start to question his authenticity; Jamal is accused of cheating and is bundled off in an unmarked van where he then suffers interrogation and torture under the hands of the Indian police.
His interrogation unravels his life story and we come to learn that Jamal knew most of the answers by chance due to things that had happened in his life. This is conveyed in a series of flashbacks documenting the details of his childhood. This includes scenes of him obtaining Bachan’s autograph, the death of his mother during anti-Muslim violence (rekindling the memory of the 1993 anti-Muslim attacks in Mumbai’s slums) and how he and his brother Salim befriended Latika (Freida Pinto). He refers to Salim and himself as Athos and Porthos, and Latika as the third Musketeer, which led him to correctly answer a question on the famous book The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas. In Jamal’s flashbacks, he remembers the devastating hardships of his youth and the exploitation faced by some of India’s poorest street children.
One recollection is that of his capture by a gang of criminals led by Maman (Ankur Vikal) who conducts his business under the auspices of an orphanage. In reality though he “collects” street children so he can train them to beg for money. On realization of Maman’s intentions Jamal, his brother Salim and friend Latika try to escape, but only Salim and Jamal are able to do so. Salim purposely lets go of Latika’s hand as she tries to board a train to escape. Latika is re-captured by Maman’s organization.
The brothers eke out a living, traveling on top of trains, selling goods, picking pockets, and cheating foreign tourists at the Taj Mahal by pretending to be tour guides. Jamal eventually insists that they return to Mumbai since he wishes to locate Latika. When he finds her after many years; Salim claims Latika as his own, and when Jamal protests, Salim threatens to kill him. Latika intervenes, accepting her fate with Salim and in the process she breaks Jamal’s heart.
Years later, Jamal meets Latika again asking her to leave, and he promises to wait for her every day at 5 p.m. at Mumbai’s largest train station. When Latika attempts to rendezvous with him, she is recaptured by Salim’s men. One of the men slashes her cheek with a knife as Salim drives off, leaving Jamal behind with a crowd of onlookers.
Jamal again loses contact with Latika, and in a desperate attempt to find her, he tries out for the popular game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? as he knows that she will be watching. Following the disclosure of his life story under police torture and his refusal to admit to cheating, the investigator takes pity on the child and releases him to allow him to continue with the game show.
Latika watches the news coverage of Jamal’s miraculous run on the show, which has the ability to change Salim’s life from that of a simple “Slumdog” to a multi-millionaire.
Salim, also starts to feel guilty about the way he has treated both Latika and his brother, and gives Latika his phone and the keys to his car. He urges her to run away and to “forgive him for what he has done”.
When Jamal uses his Phone-A-Friend lifeline to call Salim, Latika answers his phone and they are at last reconnected. It is then revealed that the correct answer to the opening question of the film: How did he do it? (A) He cheated, (B) He’s lucky, (C) He’s a genius, (D) It is written. The answer is: D) it is written, implying that all that has taken place in Jamal’s life is destiny.
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