Slumdog Millionaire , The Urban Fairytale ! - See What the Critics Across The Globe Are Saying!

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Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire?

DURING the Great Depression, American moviegoers seeking escape could
ogle platoons of glamorous chorus girls in “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Our
feel-good movie of the year is “Slumdog Millionaire,” a Dickensian tale
in which we root for an impoverished orphan from Mumbai’s slums to hit
the jackpot on the Indian edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

It’s a virtuoso feast of filmmaking by Danny Boyle, but it’s also the
perfect fairy tale for our hard times. The hero labors as a serf in the
toilet of globalization: one of those mammoth call centers Westerners
reach when ringing an 800 number to, say,
check on credit card debt.
When he gets his unlikely crack at instant wealth, the whole system is
stacked against him, including the corrupt back office of a slick game
show too good to be true.

We cheer the young man on screen even if we’ve lost the hope to root
for ourselves. The vicarious victory of a third world protagonist must
be this year’s stocking stuffer. The trouble with “Slumdog Millionaire”
is that it, like all classic movie fables, comes to an end — as it
happens, with an elaborately choreographed Bollywood musical number
redolent of “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Then we are delivered back to the
inescapable and chilling reality 20outside the theater’s doors.

Just when we thought that reality couldn’t hit a new bottom it did with
Bernie Madoff, a smiling shark as sleazy as the TV host in “Slumdog.” A
pillar of both the Wall Street and Jewish communities — a former Nasdaq
chairman, a trustee at Yeshiva University — he even victimized Elie
Wiesel’s Foundation for Humanity with his Ponzi scheme. A Jewish
financier rips off millions of dollars devoted to memorializing the
Holocaust — who could make this stuff up? Dickens, Balzac, Trollope
and, for that matter, even Mel Brooks might be appalled.

Madoff, of course, made up everything. When he turned himself in, he
=0
Areportedly declared that his business was “all just one big lie.” (The
man didn’t call his 55-foot yacht “Bull” for nothing.) As Brian
Williams of NBC News pointed out, the $50 billion thought to have
vanished is roughly three times as much as the proposed Detroit
bailout. And no one knows how it happened, least of all the federal
regulators charged with policing him and protecting the public. If
Madoff hadn’t confessed — for reasons that remain unclear — he might
still be rounding up new victims.

There is a moral to be drawn here, and it’s not simply that human
nature is unchanging and that there always will be crooks, including

those in high places. Nor is it merely that Wall Street regulation has
been a joke. Of what we’ve learned about Madoff so far, the most useful
lesson can be gleaned from how his smart, well-heeled clients routinely
characterized the strategy that generated their remarkably steady
profits. As The Wall Street Journal noted, they “often referred to it
as a ‘black box.’ ”

In the investment world “black box” is tossed around to refer to a
supposedly ingenious financial model that is confidential or
incomprehensible or both. Most of us know the “black box” instead as
that strongbox full of data that is retrieved (sometimes) after a pla
ne
crash to tell the authorities what went wrong. The only problem is that
its findings arrive too late to save the crash’s victims. The hope is
that the information will instead help prevent the next disaster.

The question in the aftermath of the Madoff calamity is this: Why do we
keep ignoring what we learn from the black boxes being retrieved from
crash after crash in our economic meltdown? The lesson could not be
more elemental. If there’s a mysterious financial model producing
miraculous returns, odds are it’s a sham — whether it’s an outright
fraud, as it apparently is in Madoff’s case, or nominally legal, as is
the case with the Wall S
treet giants that have fallen this year.

Wall Street’s black boxes contained derivatives created out of whole
cloth, deriving their value from often worthless subprime mortgages.
The enormity of the gamble went undetected not only by investors but by
the big brains at the top of the firms, many of whom either escaped
(Merrill Lynch’s E. Stanley O’Neal) or remain in place (Citigroup’s
Robert Rubin) after receiving obscene compensation for their illusory
short-term profits and long-term ignorance.

There has been no punishment for many of those who failed to heed this
repeated lesson. Quite the contrary. The business magazine Portfolio,
writing in mid-September about one of=2
0the world’s biggest insurance
companies, observed that “now that A.I.G is battling to survive, it is
its black box that may save it yet.” That box — stuffed with
“accounting or investments so complex and arcane that they remain
unknown to most investors” — was so huge that Washington might deem it
“too big to fail.”

Sure enough — and unlike its immediate predecessor in collapse, Lehman
Brothers — A.I.G. was soon bailed out to the tune of $123 billion. Most
of that also disappeared by the end of October. But not before A.I.G.
executives were caught spending $442,000 on a weeklong retreat to a
California beach resort.

There are more black boxes still to be pried open, whether at private
outfits like Madoff’s or at publicly traded companies like General
Electric, parent of the opaque GE Capital Corporation, the financial
services unit that has been the single biggest contributor to the G.E.
bottom line in recent years. But have we yet learned anything?
Incredibly enough, as we careen into 2009, the very government
operation tasked with repairing the damage caused by Wall Street’s
black boxes is itself a black box of secrecy and impenetrability.

Last week ABC News asked 16 of the banks that have received handouts
from the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief
0AProgram the same two direct questions: How have you used that money,
and how much have you spent on bonuses this year? Most refused to
answer.

Congress can’t get the answers either. Its oversight panel declared in
a first report this month that the Treasury is doling out billions
“without seeking to monitor the use of funds provided to specific
financial institutions.” The Treasury prefers instead to look at
“general metrics” indicating the program’s overall effect on the
economy. Well, we know what the “general metrics” tell us already: the
effect so far is nil. Perhaps if we were let in on the specifics, we’d
start to understand
why.

In its own independent attempt to penetrate the bailout, the Government
Accountability Office learned that “the standard agreement between
Treasury and the participating institutions does not require that these
institutions track or report how they plan to use, or do use, their
capital investments.” Executives at all but two of the bailed-out banks
told the G.A.O. that the “money is fungible,” so they “did not intend
to track or report” specifically what happens to the taxpayers’ cash.

Nor is there any serious accounting for executive pay at these
seminationalized companies. As Amit Paley of The Washington Post
reported, a last-minute, one-sentence 20loophole added by the Bush
administration to the original bailout bill gutted the already minimal
restrictions on executive compensation. And so when Goldman Sachs,
Henry Paulson’s Wall Street alma mater, says that it is not using
public money to pay executives, we must take it on faith.

In the wake of the Madoff debacle, there are loud calls to reform the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including from the president-elect.
Under both Clinton and Bush, that supposed watchdog agency ignored
repeated and graphic warnings of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme as studiously as
Bush ignored Al Qaeda’s threats during the summer of 2001.

But fixing that one agency is no panacea. All the 20talk about restoring
“confidence” and “faith” in capitalism will be worthless if we still
can’t see what’s going on in the counting rooms. In his role as
chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner,
Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury secretary, has been at the center
of the action in the bailout’s black box, including the still-murky and
conflicting actions (and nonactions) taken with Lehman and A.I.G. His
confirmation hearings demand questions every bit as tough as those that
were lobbed at the executives from Detroit’s Big Three.

On Friday, Geithner’s partner in bailout management, Paulson, asked
Congress to 20give the Treasury the second half of the $700 billion
bailout stash. But without transparency and accountability in
Washington’s black box, as well as Wall Street’s, there will continue
to be no trust in the system, no matter how many cops the S.E.C. puts
on the beat. Even the family-owned real-estate company of Eliot
Spitzer, the former “Sheriff of Wall Street,” had entrusted money with
Madoff.

We’ll keep believing, not without reason, that the whole game is as
corrupt as the game show in “Slumdog Millionaire” — only without the
Hollywood/Bollywood ending. We’ll keep wondering how so many at the top
keep avoiding responsibility and r
eaping taxpayers’ billions while
relief for those at the bottom remains as elusive as straight answers
from those Mumbai call centers fielding American debtors.

This wholesale loss of confidence is a catastrophe that not even the
new president’s most costly New Deal can set right.

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Life is the answer

A game-show backdrop lets ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ weave a dynamic tale of
life and love.

Who would believe that the best old-fashioned audience picture of the
=0
Ayear, a Hollywood-style romantic melodrama that delivers major studio
satisfactions in an ultra-modern way, was made on the streets of India
with largely unknown stars by a British director who never makes the
same movie twice? Go figure. ¶ That would be the hard-to-resist
“Slumdog Millionaire,” with director Danny Boyle adding independent
film touches to a story of star-crossed romance that the original
Warner brothers would have embraced, shamelessly pulling out stops that
you wouldn’t think anyone would have the nerve to attempt anymore. ¶
But Boyle has been nothing if not bold with this film. He’s dared to
use so many venerable movie elements it’s dizzying,
dared us to say we
won’t be moved or involved, dared us to say we’re too hip to fall for
tricks that are older than we are. And, as witnessed by “Slumdog’s”
capturing of the Toronto Film Festival’s often prophetic audience
award, he’s won that bet. ¶ Because he’s a director who is always up
for something different, Boyle’s films run an unmatchable gamut, from
the punk operatics of “Trainspotting” to the sweetness of “Millions,”
the shock of “28 Days Later” and the science-fiction theatrics of
“Sunshine.” What unites all of them, though, is the unstoppable
cinematic energy pouring off the
screen that’s at the heart of Boyle’s
always vigorous style.

Given that, it was perhaps inevitable that the director would end up
making a film in India, plugging effortlessly into the phenomenal
liveliness and nonstop street life of the place. And he’s upped the
ante by hiring the great A.R. Rahman, the king of Bollywood music, to
contribute one of his unmistakable propulsive scores.

All this dynamism is at the service of a script by “The Full Monty’s”
Simon Beaufoy, which is in turn based on “Q&A,” a novel by Vikas Swarup
that involves, of all things, the Indian version of the hit TV show
“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
.” If this sounds like unlikely source
material for involving cinema, you’re not alone in your thoughts: Boyle
initially had the same reaction.

What won the director over is the dynamic, almost Dickensian arc of
“Slumdog’s” story, which begins with a multiple-choice question typed
on the screen. “Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20
million rupees,” it reads. “How did he do it? A) He cheated. B) He’s
lucky. C) He’s a genius. D) It is written.”

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel of the British TV series “Skins”), the slumdog
of the title, turns out to be an impoverished 18-year-old orphan who
works hurrie
dly serving tea to harried telephone solicitors in the
great city of Mumbai.

We see Jamal in two places almost at once in the film’s cross-cut
opening. He’s on stage on the “Millionaire” telecast, being needled by
Prem (Anil Kapoor), the show’s arrogant host. And he’s also in a police
station the night before the final telecast, being brutally
interrogated (“Slumdog” is rated R for “some violence, disturbing
images and language”) because no one can believe that such a lowly,
uneducated person has been able to answer all the questions that he has.

To get back on the show for the final question – by explaining to the =0
D
dubious police inspector (Irfan Khan) how he came to know what he does
– Jamal has to tell him (and us) the story of his life, a story where,
in true Frank Capra fashion, chance, luck, suffering and street smarts
all play major parts.

Jamal’s companion in most things is his older brother, Salim (Madhur
Mittal), a hard-headed cynic where Jamal is a passionate dreamer, the
kind of kid who is willing, in one of the film’s most piquant scenes,
to literally wade through the offal from an outhouse to get to his
hero, Indian film legend Amitabh Bachchan.

Because Jamal’s and Salim’s lives are full of incident despite their
youth, it takes three actors
apiece to tell their stories. The youngest
of them are Hindi-speaking street kids whom casting director Loveleen
Tandan (whose work was so crucial that Boyle gives her a co-director
credit) both discovered and worked with closely.

As Jamal describes the specific incidents that led to his being able to
answer each of the quiz show questions, he is simultaneously telling
several stories, tales of the link between brothers, the never-ending
battle with poverty, the lure and pitfalls of crime and the rapid
modernization of India.

But most of all – and it wouldn’t be a Hollywood-style movie if this
weren’t true – he’s telling a romantic story as well, a tal
e of love at
first sight with the beautiful Latika (played as an adult by Freida
Pinto), a love that has to fight against all manner of privations,
disappointments and despair.

To make this kind of story modern, Boyle and his team, especially
cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantel and editor Chris Dickens, have told
it in the jazziest way possible, breaking things up into numerous then
and now sections and making the dark elements (like the torture used in
the initial police interview) much darker than would have been the case
in Hollywood’s prime. The Warner brothers would have blanched at that,
but they would have loved this story, and in that they would have been
far from 20alone.

USA TODAY
The exhilarating and sweeping Slumdog Millionaire (* * * * out of four)
is one in a million.
Director Danny Boyle's riveting and kaleidoscopic tale, based on Vikas
Swarup's debut novel Q and A, is exquisitely adapted to the screen by
Simon Beaufoy.

BOYLE'S BACK: 'Trainspotting' director returns with 'Slumdog'
MEET THE STARS: Patel, Pinto hit the 'Slumdog Millionaire' jackpot

An eclectic filmmaker, Boyle has 20made movies as diverse as the poignant
children's film Millions (2005) and the grisly zombie movie 28 Days
Later (2003). Slumdog is easily Boyle's best film since he rocked the
film world with 1996's Trainspotting, his highly original look at a
drug subculture in Scotland.

Fanciful, epic and exuberantly paced, Slumdog Millionaire chronicles
the life of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a dirt-poor orphan who captivates
the masses as he wins a fortune on India's most popular quiz show. Told
in non-linear style, the movie switches among harrowing stories of
Jamal's childhood in the slums of Mumbai to his moments of awkward
glory as a contestant on the show to his sudden incarceration and
ensuin
g interrogation. It is this questioning by a police inspector
(Irfan Khan) that elicits the compelling flashbacks of his early youth.

Some of those memories are deeply disturbing. Jamal recounts terrible
cruelties from his impoverished childhood: homelessness, torture,
prostitution. He forms a bond with a savvy street urchin, Latika
(played as a teen by Freida Pinto), which blossoms into love.

Despite — or perhaps because of — his traumatic childhood, Jamal
becomes a determined romantic. In the process, he acquires knowledge on
a wealth of subjects. By the time he appears as a contestant on Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire, he has absorbed a range of information,
keeping him on t
he show far longer than the smarmy host (Anil Kapoor)
finds credible.

A Dickensian story, Slumdog is both universal and quintessentially
Indian. Some of the film is in Hindi, which heightens a sense of
authenticity, as does the musical score.

With dazzling, magical realism and vigorous storytelling, the film has
an enchanting power, fusing a fairy tale quality with gritty realism.
Yet even with interwoven surrealistic images, the story portrays
cultural accuracy. In a highly charged, intensely Technicolor world,
there is poverty and privation but also laughter and hope, accentuated
by the tribute to Bollywood musicals during the final credits.

The beautifully rendered and energetic tale celebr
ates resilience, the
power of knowledge and the vitality of the human experience.
Horrifying, humorous and life-affirming, it is, above all,
unforgettable. (Rated R for some violence, disturbing images and
language. Running time: 2 hours. Opens today in select cities.)

Starring: Danny Boyle, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan
Khan

Directed by: Danny Boyle

RS: 3.5of 4 Stars Average User Rating: 3.5of 4 Stars

2008 Fox Searchlight Pictures Comedy=0
D

What I feel for this movie isn't just admiration, it's mad love. And I
couldn't be more surprised. The plot reeks of uplift: An illiterate
slum kid from Mumbai goes on the local TV version of Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire and comes off like a brainiac. Who wants to see that? Final
answer: You do. Slumdog Millionaire has the goods to bust out as a
scrappy contender in the Oscar race. It's modern India standing in for
a world in full economic spin. It's an explosion of color and light
with the darkness ever ready to invade. It's a family film of shocking
brutality, a romance haunted by sexual abuse, a fantasy of wealth
fueled by crushing poverty.

You won't find ma
ny fairy tales that open with a graphic torture scene.
The cops think 18-year-old Jamal Malik (a sensational Dev Patel) is a
fraud. Goaded by the show's host (the superb Anil Kapoor), the police
inspector (Irrfan Khan) is determined to beat the truth out of Jamal
before he goes back on the show and hits the jackpot of 20 million
rupees. Presumably this is not the way Regis Philbin ran things when
the show hit America in 1999.

Brimming with humor and heartbreak, Slumdog Millionaire meets at the
border of art and commerce and lets one flow into the other as if that
were the natural order of things. Sweet. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy
(The Full Monty) brings focus to Q & A, the 20episodic Vikas Swarup novel
on which the film is based. Still, the MVP here is Danny Boyle, who
directs the film brilliantly. Boyle is the Irish-Catholic working-class
Brit who put his surreal mark on zombies (28 Days Later) and smack
addicts (Trainspotting), and made us see ourselves in their blood wars.
Those movies were so potent, as was his 1994 debut, Shallow Grave, that
we looked the other way when Boyle went Hollywood with The Beach and
screwed up with A Life Less Ordinary. Somehow we knew that Boyle had
the stuff to work miracles.

Here's the proof. We learn the history of Jamal and the other principal
characters in flashbacks, as Jamal answers questions on the TV show n
ot
from book knowledge — he has none — but his own life experiences. Jamal
is searching for two people from his childhood: his wild older brother
Salim (an outstanding Madhur Mittal), now a thief and killer, and his
adored Latika (the achingly lovely Freida Pinto), now stepping up from
child prostitute to plaything of a gangster. Every incident, including
the brothers' watching their mother die in an anti-Muslim riot, feeds
into Jamal's answers on the show. OK, the concept bends coincidence to
the breaking point. But Jamal's traumatic youth is his lifeline. Boyle
makes magic realism part of the film's fabric, the essential part that
lets in hope without compromising integrity.

Anthony Dod Mantle uses compact digital cameras to move with speed and
stealth through the slums and palaces of Mumbai. The film is a visual
wonder, propelled by A.R. Rahman's hip-hopping score and Chris Dickens'
kinetic editing. The whoosh of action and romance pulls you in, but
it's the bruised characters who hold you there. Every step Jamal takes
toward his final answer could get him killed. Even in the Bollywood
musical number that ends the film, joy and pain are still joined in the
dance. The no-bull honesty of Slumdog Millionaire hits you hard. It's
the real deal. No cheating.

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Slumdog Millionaire
Squeal, slumdog swindler! How
are you learning these things?

Release Date: 2008

Ebert Rating: ****

/ / / Nov 11, 2008

by Roger Ebert

Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" hits the ground running. This is a
breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same
time, about a Mumbai orphan who rises from rags to riches on the
strength of his lively intelligence. The film's universal appeal will
present the real India to millions of moviegoers for the first time.

The real India, supercharged with a plot as reliable=2
0and eternal as the
hills. The film's surface is so dazzling that you hardly realize how
traditional it is underneath. But it's the buried structure that pulls
us through the story like a big engine on a short train.

By the real India, I don't mean an unblinking documentary like Louis
Malle's "Calcutta" or the recent "Born Into Brothels." I mean the real
India of social levels that seem to be separated by centuries. What do
people think of when they think of India? On the one hand, Mother
Teresa, "Salaam Bombay!" and the wretched of the earth. On the other,
the "Masterpiece Theater"-style images of "A Passage to India,"
"Gandhi" and "The Jewel in the Crown."

The India of
Mother Teresa still exists. Because it is side-by-side
with the new India, it is easily seen. People living in the streets. A
woman crawling from a cardboard box. Men bathing at a fire hydrant. Men
relieving themselves by the roadside. You stand on one side of the
Hooghly River, a branch of the Ganges that runs through Kolkuta, and
your friend tells you, "On the other bank millions of people live
without a single sewer line."

On the other hand, the world's largest middle class, mostly
lower-middle, but all the more admirable. The India of "Monsoon
Wedding." Millionaires. Mercedes-Benzes and Audis. Traffic like Demo
Derby. Luxury condos. Exploding education. A booming computer segment.

A fountain of medical professionals. Some of the most exciting modern
English literature. A Bollywood to rival Hollywood.

"Slumdog Millionaire" bridges these two Indias by cutting between a
world of poverty and the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a
Millionaire." It tells the story of an orphan from the slums of Mumbai
who is born into a brutal existence. A petty thief, impostor and
survivor, mired in dire poverty, he improvises his way up through the
world and remembers everything he has learned.

His name is Jamel (played as a teenager by Dev Patel). He is Oliver
Twist. High-spirited and defiant in the worst of times, he survives. He
scrapes out a living at the Taj Mahal, 20which he did not know about but
discovers by being thrown off a train. He pretends to be a guide,
invents "facts" out of thin air, advises tourists to remove their shoes
and then steals them. He finds a bit part in the Mumbai underworld, and
even falls in idealized romantic love, that most elusive of conditions
for a slumdog.

His life until he's 20 is told in flashbacks intercut with his
appearance as a quiz show contestant. Pitched as a slumdog, he supplies
the correct answer to question after question and becomes a national
hero. The flashbacks show why he knows the answers. He doesn't
volunteer this information. It is beaten out of him by the show's
security staff. T
hey are sure he must be cheating.

The film uses dazzling cinematography, breathless editing, driving
music and headlong momentum to explode with narrative force, stirring
in a romance at the same time. For Danny Boyle, it is a personal
triumph. He combines the suspense of a game show with the vision and
energy of "City of God" and never stops sprinting.

When I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" at Toronto, I was witnessing a
phenomenon: dramatic proof that a movie is about how it tells itself. I
walked out of the theater and flatly predicted it would win the
Audience Award. Seven days later, it did. And that it could land a best
picture Oscar nomination. We will see. It is one of t
hose miraculous
entertainments that achieves its immediate goals and keeps climbing
toward a higher summit.

Cast & Credits

Jamal Malik (older) Dev Patel
Latika (older) Freida Pinto
Salim Malik (older) Madhur Mittal
Prem Anil Kapoor
Inspector Irrfan Khan
Jamal (middle) Tanay Hemant Chheda
Latika (middle) Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar
Salim (middle) Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala
Jamal (youngest) Ayush Mahesh Khedekar
Latika (youngest) Rubina Ali
Salim (youngest) Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail

Fox Searchlight presents a film directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by
Simon Beaufoy, based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup. In English with
Hindi dialogue. Running time: 116 minutes. Rated R (for some violence,
disturbing
images and language).

At Rockies Fest, Indian Dazzler Is One of the Peaks
Telluride Thrills to 'Slumdog' and French Film With Scott Thomas

By JOE MORGENSTERN

A slip of the lip got a warm laugh at this year's Telluride Film
Festival. In the course of introducing a film at the Sheridan Opera
House, a beautiful little jewel box of a theater that dates back to the
19th century, a bright young woman said Sandra Bernhard had played
there. She meant Sarah=2
0Bernhardt, of course, and she stood corrected by
several members of the audience, but no matter; old and new play well
together at a festival with a long history of taking the broad view.
For more than three decades, movie lovers have come to this former
mining town almost 9,000 feet up in the Rockies for refresher courses
in where the medium has been (neglected or downright unknown classics
from the silent and sound eras alike) as well as where it's at.

Watch a scene from "Slumdog Millionaire". Courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Pictures. (Sept. 5)
On that count the 35th annual festival was a great success -- scores of
fascinating features, documentaries and shorts, along with tributes=2
0to
three people who richly deserve them: the actress Jean Simmons, the
Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell and the American director David Fincher.
Festival regulars ask no more, even though, in their heart of hearts,
they may hope for surprise and excitement. Last year those hopes were
rewarded by "Juno," and the year before by "The Last King of Scotland"
and "The Lives of Others." This year's schedule gave no hint of
potential bombshells, but, again, that was perfectly OK, given the
quality of the program as a whole. Then along came "Slumdog
Millionaire."

The film's director, Danny Boyle, and the screen writer, Simon Beaufoy,
are both English, and they've both done fine work in the pas
t. Mr.
Boyle's films include the gritty "Trainspotting," the exuberant
"Millions" and the elegant zombie epic "28 Days Later." Mr. Beaufoy
wrote the deathless, as well as bottomless, "The Full Monty." Yet
"Slumdog Millionaire," which is set in Mumbai and was adapted from
Vikas Swarup's novel "Q & A," takes us to a level that tops the Rockies
for heightened experience. An amalgam of "Oliver Twist," "The Three
Musketeers" and Bollywood extravagance, it's the saga -- mainly in
English, plus some subtitled Hindi -- of a wretchedly poor Muslim boy,
played as a young man by Dev Patel, who pulls himself up by his brains
instead of his bootstraps, and gets a shot at becoming a millionaire on

a wondrously garish Indian TV quiz show.

Dev Patel
"Slumdog Millionaire" will open commercially later this fall, so I'll
confine myself to only a few effusions now, with more to come. There's
never been anything like this densely detailed phantasmagoria --
groundbreaking in substance, damned near earth-shaking in style. Mr.
Boyle and his colleagues, including his Indian co-director, Loveleen
Tandan, have pulled off a soaring, crowd-pleasing fantasy that's a tale
of unswerving love, a searing depiction of poverty and injustice and a
marvelous evocation of multinational media madness. When I spoke to the
director after the first screening here -- actually the first public
screening anywhere -
- I said his film was a great example of what the
late Carol Reed once advised: Find the right container, and you can
fill it with whatever you wish. "Yes," Danny Boyle replied, "and I also
try to follow David Lean's advice to declare your ambitions in the
first five minutes." The ambitions declared at the beginning of
"Slumdog Millionaire" are huge. By the end they're completely fulfilled.

American movies were in short supply, partly thanks to production
delays caused by labor strife in Hollywood, but also to the vagaries of
distribution. "American Violet," directed by Tim Disney from Bill
Haney's script, is marked by the eloquent debut of Nicole Behaire as a
young single mother nam
ed Dee Roberts. She's the heroine of a drama
based on a landmark case in which a similarly young and poor Texas
woman brought suit against a local district attorney for a pattern of
racism after many black residents of her small town were arrested in a
single night. In "Flash of Genius," Greg Kinnear brings a quirky
intensity to the role of Robert Kearns, the inventor of the
intermittent windshield wiper who won judgments against Ford and
Chrysler for appropriating his idea. And in "Adam Resurrected," Paul
Schrader's fearless film version of Yoram Kaniuk's Holocaust novel,
Jeff Goldblum is nothing short of dazzling as a former circus clown
being treated in an Israeli mental institution.
0A

Sony Pictures Classic
Kristin Scott Thomas in 'I Loved You So Long.'
For me, as a working critic, Telluride always amounts to a welcome rite
of passage -- a passage from the dispiriting sameness of the coarse,
aggressively stupid summer movies that fill the multiplexes to the
renewed pleasure of watching nuanced human behavior on a big screen.
Philippe Claudel's debut feature "I Loved You So Long," in subtitled
French, provided that pleasure in hearts and spades. Kristin Scott
Thomas is Juliette, a gaunt pariah who comes to live with her younger
sister, Léa, after serving 15 years in prison for a terrible crime.
While Elsa Zylberstein is splendid as Léa, Scott Thomas's perform
ance
is absolute perfection -- sometimes hooded, occasionally ferocious,
often unshowy (and not at all showy about being unshowy). The plot is
not without its manipulations, but the film is so subtle and smart that
you either don't notice or don't mind.

Seeing Bent Hamer's inimitably droll "Kitchen Stories" several years
ago set me up to enjoy the Norwegian filmmaker's new feature,
"O'Horten," and I wasn't disappointed. The hero, Odd Horten, is a
solitary and punctilious train engineer who takes a sense of power from
the high-speed locomotives he drives. When he reaches the age of
mandatory retirement -- and misses the last run of his career -- this
shy, gentle man faces a derailing 20solitude for which he's ill-prepared.
Or seemingly ill-prepared. Surrounded by decay, death and dulcet
screwiness, Horten slowly but surely gets back on life's track.

One of the festival's best documentaries, "Pirate for the Sea,"
celebrates Paul Watson, a Greenpeace founder turned eco-terrorist. With
a ship of his own and a willingness to use it as a weapon, Watson is
nothing if not self-dramatizing. He'll do almost anything -- so long as
it doesn't injure human beings -- to protect whales, seals and sharks
from industrialized predation. But Ron Colby's film is more than a
rallying cry to save the planet's ailing seas. It's a study in what
some will consider crazy zealotry, and others 20will see as unfathomable
courage.

Find television listings for Danny Boyle and Kristin Scott Thomas at
LocateTV.
The best introduction, apart from the Sandra/Sarah sally at the
Sheridan Opera House, was given at the Chuck Jones Theater, even higher
up a mountain from Telluride proper. The speaker was Ari Folman, an
Israeli filmmaker who said he'd been in all sorts of risky situations,
including Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, but they were nothing
compared to flying into Telluride airport, a single runway on a narrow
plateau that resembles an aircraft carrier.

Mr. Folman's film, "Waltz With Bashir," deals with elusive issues of
dissociation, repressed memories and survivors' guilt -- 20in that sense
it's a companion piece to "Adam Resurrected" -- by examining an
infamous incident in the Lebanon war when Christian Phalangists
massacred Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps
while Israeli soldiers surrounding the camps did nothing to stop them.
Remarkably, the film is an animated feature, and the animation
technique works brilliantly. (The blue-and-orange images that first
fill the screen, a pack of ravening dogs running through the streets of
Tel Aviv, are as powerful as any I've ever seen.) In a festival perched
between present and past, risk-takers like "Waltz With Bashir" and
"Slumdog Millionaire" show where the movies may go in the future.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Well, who wouldn't in this economy, even
if the currency in question is rupees and winning the loot means being
pegged as a fraud, getting a firsthand education in "enhanced"
interrogation methods, and having to relive some of the most painful
moments of your past in order to prove your innocence? Such is the fate
that greets Jamal, the 18-year-old Mumbai street urchin turned
gam
e-show contestant at the center of Danny Boyle's Slumdog
Millionaire, an almost ridiculously ebullient Bollywood-meets-Hollywood
concoction—and one of the rare "feel-good" movies that actually makes
you feel good, as opposed to merely jerked around.

Based on a novel by former Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup, the film opens
with Jamal (played with terrific chutzpah by newcomer Dev Patel)
already in police custody, accused of somehow cheating during his
appearance on the local version of Millionaire—which, in a nod to
globalization, is all but indistinguishable from its British and
American counterparts. Given the third degree by a tough but ultimately
decent police inspector (the excellent Irfan K
han) who demands to know
how this lowly tea boy (or "chai wallah") from the slums could possibly
know enough to advance to the show's 20-million-rupee final round,
Jamal flashes back over the key events of a life that, quite literally,
contains all the answers. The violent death of Jamal's mother at the
hands of anti-Muslim extremists explains his familiarity with one of
the Millionaire questions; a childhood infatuation with Bollywood movie
star Amitabh Bachchan yet another; and so on.

The potential for a treacly Good Will Hunting of the Mumbai ghetto
abounds, but Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty)
think more in terms of a minor-scale Dickensian epic (with one major

nod to Dumas): As Jamal journeys down memory lane, the crux of Slumdog
Millionaire becomes the pull of time and tide on the relationship
between Jamal, his artful-dodger brother Salim, and the suitably
beautiful, unattainable Latika (Freida Pinto), the lifelong object of
Jamal's undying affection. It's Jamal's dream to rescue Latika from her
current situation as the semi-willing concubine of a Mumbai underworld
heavy—the same one, as it happens, who has Salim on his payroll.

Zigging to and fro, Slumdog Millionaire whips these familiar raw
ingredients into a feverish masala, at once touristic and something
deeper, that drenches the screen in the sights and sounds of modern
Mumbai: Misc
hievous children scamper through mazes of corrugated-tin
rooftops; crowds of washerwomen cleanse extravagantly colored fabrics
in outdoor baths; eardrum-rattling traffic chokes the smoggy streets;
trains clatter noisily into busy stations. So intent seems Boyle (and
his ace cameraman, Anthony Dod Mantle) on cramming as much visual and
sonic information as possible into each second of the movie that even
the English subtitles (which appear in colored rectangular boxes during
the Hindi-language scenes) jostle for position in the already densely
packed frames. That sort of hyped-up aesthetic can quickly turn
wearying, as it has in several of Boyle's less successful ventures
(including Shallow Grave and the duly=2
0forgotten A Life Less Ordinary),
but here it is a fount of ever-renewable energy. "I am at the center of
the center," Salim tells Jamal as they gaze out over the landscape of
their former slum, now an oasis of skyward-reaching glass-and-steel
towers. And watching Slumdog, you get the sense that, like Shanghai as
seen in the films of Jia Zhangke, this former stretch of colonial
Britain is changing before our eyes faster than even Boyle's camera can
capture it.

A dystopian by nature, whose films regularly move in the direction of
entropic chaos, Boyle resists the natural tug of Slumdog Millionaire
toward happily-ever-after territory, counterbalancing each of Jamal's
triumphs with equa
l or greater episodes of personal loss and
steadfastly refusing the age-old movie wisdom that love conquers all
(especially money). Yet it's that very tension between gritty,
street-level reality and fairy-tale invention that ultimately makes
Slumdog Millionaire feel even more buoyant and life-affirming. Like so
many of the Bollywood melodramas it stylistically apes, Boyle's film is
unapologetically pop, even as Boyle himself seems to be at once inside
and outside the idiom, embracing it while winking slyly at our
collective need for escapist fantasy. Then, just when you figure he has
pulled out all the stops, Boyle proves to have one more trick left up
his sleeve: a joyous musical number that se
nds everybody out of the
theater feeling like a winner.

By LOU LUMENICK

FOUR stars simply aren't enough for Danny Boyle's "Slumdog
Millionaire," which just may be the most entertaining movie I've ever
labeled a masterpiece in these pages.

Great movies transport the audience, and this one left me floating on
air after two viewings. I can't wait to see it again - and share it
with others.

It's actually one of those movies that are best approached with=2
0as
little advance knowledge as possible.

If you need more of a sell than that, let me just say it's a soaringly
romantic, uproarious comedy-drama with Dickensian overtones - set
mostly in a vividly rendered Mumbai, India.

A police inspector (the excellent Irfan Khan) describes the story,
which is taken from a novel inspired by a perhaps apocryphal story, as
"bizarrely plausible." That's about right.

Jamal (Dev Patel), an 18-year-old Muslim, is a highly successful
contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire."

He has qualified to answer a question that could bring him 20 million
rupees (about $460,000), but the show's unctuous host (Indian superstar
Anil 20Kapoor) is jealous of his popularity and deeply skeptical of
Jamal's knowledge.

How can Jamal, an orphan from Mumbai's slums who works as a tea server
at the phone company, possibly know the answers to questions that stump
learned professionals?

So he turns Jamal over to the cops, and they begin torturing our hero
to confess that he's somehow cheating.

In the brilliantly structured screenplay by Simon Beaufoy ("The Full
Monty"), this summons forth a remarkable series of memories from Jamal,
going all the way back to his childhood when his mother is killed in a
religious riot.

Each story illustrates how Jamal is able to answer the questions.

We follow Jamal and his=2
0older brother Salim - well played by three sets
of actors at various ages - through a series of incredibly colorful
adventures, all of which adds to Jamal's store of knowledge.

It begins with a dive into a latrine pit to steal a glimpse of a movie
star and continues with their stealing shoes at the Taj Mahal as the
brothers fall in and out with various band of criminals and each other.

The driving thread is the beautiful Latika (played as an adult by
Freida Pinto), with whom Jamal becomes smitten as a child. He pursues
her tirelessly even after she has been sold off to become the bride of
a gang boss.

Boyle ("Trainspotting," "28 Days Later") and Beaufoy don't take
a
single wrong step as the story hurtles toward a hugely satisfying
climax.

American audiences have long been notoriously cool to the

larger-than-life storytelling style of Bollywood that Boyle pays
tribute to, but "Slumdog Millionaire" could be an even bigger game
changer than "Moulin Rouge."

With a gallery of unforgettable performances and indelible images of
the subcontinent, this is surely one of the year's best movies - and
the only live-action contender for the Best Picture Oscar released so
far this year.

And by the way, don't be afraid to take kids as young as 10. Yes, it's
got some subtitles - about half the film is in English - and yes, that
R rating
is justified by some violence and intense imagery.

But few movies ever have provided better and more entertaining lessons
about the joys of learning. Plus, they'll really enjoy it. Honest.

Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Simon Beaufroy, from the novel Q
& A by Vikas Swarup. With Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto and
Anil Kapoor.

The director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Millions collaborates
with the screenwriter of The Fu
ll Monty and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a
Day — surely we're in for some all-British shenanigans. But no, this is
a social epic set in modern India, when Bombay became Mumbai, and the
new techno-wealth contrasted ever more sharply with the crushing,
enduring poverty of the masses.

One young man, Jamal (Patel), has miraculously, or suspiciously,
spanned those two worlds. A tea server, or chai wallah, for a telephone
marketing company, he has won a fortune on the Indian version of Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire. The show's host (Kapoor) is so skeptical of
Jamal's ability to answer the questions that he has policemen try to
torture the truth out of the lad. His explanations all r
elate to his
hard life as a homeless orphan in the company of his brother Salim
(Mittal) and, not often enough, with the winsome, consistently abused
Latika. Salim is the type-A troublemaker, the fighter and conniver,
restless and reckless, and thus the ideal complement to Jamal's
caution, sensitivity and resilience. These flashbacks constitute the
body of a sharp, teeming, dark, very romantic film.

As the boys forage through garbage heaps, get hooked in by
child-molesting Fagins and slip into lives of petty or flagrant crime,
you'll be reminded of Pixote and City of God and Oliver Twist and a
dozen Indian musical melodramas — which are more sanitized by far but
display the sam
e obsession for family ties and first love, and are just
as unashamed in pushing feelings of joy and despair to the apogee of
passion. Jamal's search for his long-lost lifetime love Latika is the
stuff of Indian-pop films from the Raj Kapoor era to today. True to its
roots, Slumdog ends with a chastely rapturous kiss and an all-out dance
number, composed by Bollywood deity A.R. Rahman. Despite its elements
of brutality, this is a buoyant hymn to life, and a movie to celebrate.

PC praises 'Slumdog', says slums buzzing with biz ideas

Chennai: 'Slumdog Millionaire' has a fan in Home Minister P
Chidambaram, who said on Saturday that its theme should inspire banks
to provide loans to budding entrepreneurs from slums which are humming
with business ideas.
Chidamabaram cited the movie portraying the rags to riches story of a
boy from Mumbai slum as an example to show that young boys and girls
from slums are not lagging behind corporate India.

"Please watch the movie after its release," he said speaking at the
launch of the International Financial Corporation-Venture
East-Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (an NGO)-sponsored fund to promote
grassroots entrepreneurship in In
dia.

The movie has fetched the Golden Globe award for musician A R Rahman
and won ten Oscar nominations.

Recalling the success story of girl at a slum in Delhi who had set up a
beauty saloon with a government loan, he said "today, most of the
residents in that slum are her clients and she earns Rs 5000 a month"

"A slum like Dharavi in Mumbai is humming with business ideas and
innovations and we have to reach to such people also," he said and
exhorted government and private lending organisations to help such
people.

Besides, formal education was "not necessarily" the yardstick to
measure success but was "a great boon and help," he said, citing the
case of su
ch people.

"Lot of young men and women in slums have the necessary qualities of
being innovative and are willing to take risk to carry out a business
venture," he said.

Mumbai: Oscar nominated ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, a rags to riches story
of a Mumbai slum kid directed by British filmmaker Danny Boyle opened
to huge expectations in India on Friday.
Winner of four Golden Globe awards and ten Oscar nominations, ‘Slumdog=2
0
Millionaire’ has been produced at a budget of seven million pounds.

It has so far collected six million pounds at the UK box office and 40
million dollars in USA.

Vijay Singh, CEO of Fox Star studio which has distributed the film in
India said that there were 250 paid previews of the film prior to its
release.

"There was an overwhelming response, he said.

He said ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and its dubbed Hindi version ‘Slumdog
Crorepati’ starring Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto
has been released with 400 prints.

"In smaller towns, the demand for Hindi version has been huge," he said
adding that the film has opened to a
positive response all over the
country.

Kumar Mohan, editor of trade magazine ‘Complete Cinema’ said that
‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was a director's film.

"It is a visual delight and technically very well made," he said adding
that the film had good prospects at the box office.

Film critic Taran Adarsh said the film depicts life on the mean streets
of Mumbai and saw no reason why the effort should be ridiculed just
because it has been made by a Westerner.

"It is a love story and is dark and gory at places. But, it offers a
ray of hope for those who have been plain unlucky when it comes to
materialistic things of life and love," he said.
0A
Shruti, who saw the film on Friday morning felt that the story was an
exaggerated depiction of reality in a Mumbai slum.

"The synchronization of the game show and portraying the life of the
protagonist and how the story transgresses back and forth is very
interesting," she said adding that a Mumbai slum-dweller could relate
to the story of the film.

College going students who watched the film at suburban multiplexes
felt the child actors were a treat to watch.

"The film is okay. The morning shows were not houseful considering the
ten Oscar nominations it has got including that of ace music composer A
R Rahman," they said.
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Slumdog Millionaire

Mumbai: First things first! ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ deserves all the
accolades and awards that it has been receiving of late and will
continue receiving in the future. Also, in this writer's
individualistic opinion, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ doesn't make a mockery
or an attempt to sell the poverty of India to the West.
Sure, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ depicts life on the mean streets of Mumbai,
so what? Doesn't it exist? Should we ridicule the effort it just
because a gora has made it? We d
on't raise a noise when Indian
film-makers do so, so why now? Double standards!

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is, at heart, a love story and director Danny
Boyle treats it like a Bollywood film. In fact, the screen writing
[Simon Beaufoy] is so smart, so energetic [he must be a big fan of
Bollywood] that everything is spoon-fed to the viewer, unlike most
international films.

Sure, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is dark and gory at places, but at the end
of it all, it offers a ray of hope for those who've been plain unlucky
when it comes to the materialistic things of life and most importantly,
love.

So what's the final word? Jai Ho!

Accused of cheating a
nd desperate to prove his innocence, an
eighteen-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai reflects back on his
tumultuous life while competing to win the prized money on India's 'Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire'.

Jamal [Dev Patel] may not have a penny to his name, but that could all
change in a matter of hours. He's one question away from taking the top
prize on India's most popular television game show, but as with
everything else in Jamal's life, it isn't going to be easy.

Arrested by police under suspicion of cheating, Jamal is interrogated
by the authorities. The police simply can't believe that Jamal could
possibly possess the knowledge to get this far in the game, and in=2
0
order to convince them of how he gained such knowledge, Jamal begins
reflecting back on his childhood.

As young boys, Jamal and his older brother Salim lived in squalor and
lost their mother in a mob attack on Muslims. Subsequently forced to
rely on their own wits to survive, the desperate siblings fell back on
petty crime, eventually befriending adorable yet feisty young Latika as
they sought out food and shelter on the unforgiving streets of Mumbai.

Though life on the streets was never easy, Jamal's experiences
ultimately instilled in him the knowledge he needed to answer the tough
questions posed to him on the show.

Danny Boyle and screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy join hands
to create
one of the most engaging rags-to-riches story of a boy raised in the
slums of Mumbai. A few scenes may put you off completely, but if you're
a Mumbaite, you must've surely encountered such characters on the back
of your street.

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ keeps you hooked, there's not a single dull
moment and most importantly, your heart pines for the lovers [Jamal and
Latika] to unite, after all that they've gone through in life. That's
one of the prime reasons why ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ works big time.

If Boyle's direction and Beaufoy's screen writing works, so does A.R.
Rahman's exuberant musical score. The background score is eclectic,
while the s
ong 'Jai Ho' [at the conclusion of the film] is mesmeric.
The camera [Anthony Dod Mantle] captures the streets of the metropolis
remarkably. Note the chase at the very start, with a constable chasing
the young Salim and Jamal in the slums. Brilliant!

Dev Patel is top notch, while Anil Kapoor is highly competent. Freida
Pinto does very well. Irrfan Khan gives his individualistic style to
his role. Mahesh Manjrekar and Saurabh Shukla are first-rate. Madhur
Mittal [older Salim] is alright. Ankur Vikal spells terror. Special
mention must be made of the young actors in the film; they are such
fine actors. Especially the young Salim and Jamal.

On the whole, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’=2
0is a must-see! One of the finest
films of our times, this one should not be missed for any reason.

FORGET the twitter about aggrieved national sentiment. For, Slumdog
Millionaire is neither poverty porn nor slum tourism. No, unlike what
the desi nationalists' blogosphere claims, it is not a case of the
infamous western eye ferreting out oriental squalor and peddling it as
the exotic dirt bowl of the east. No, Slumdog Millionaire is just a
=0
Apiece of riveting cinema, meant to be savoured as a Cinderella-like
fairy tale, with the edge of a thriller and the vision of an artist. It
was never meant to be a documentary on the down and out in Dharavi. And
it isn't.

Danny Boyle actually treads into familiar territory. He takes the
typical Bollywood tale of two brothers who have only one mission in
life: survival. And he takes them through the usual ups and downs that
we have witnessed so many times in the best and the worst of Bollywood
masala : the tenements, the riots, the underworld, the brothels, the
streets, the gutters, the stations, the separations, the reunions, the
friendships, the rivalry, love, longing, despair...
followed by final
victory. And this heartwarming stayin' alive saga unfolds dramatically
against the backdrop of Mumbai's underbelly, which stands by as a
throbbing witness to the coming-of-age of its three protagonists, the
three musketeers, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), Salim Malik (Madhur Mittal)
and Latika (Frieda Pinto).

The three colourful characters travel their own separate paths. While
Jamal, who steals your heart away with his first plunge into no-man's
land (the shit pit on the edge of the slum), manages to wipe off the
dust and grime and grow straight, Salim ends up as the Gunmaster who
trusts only his Colt 45. Harsh reality forces him to become the
henchman of the gangster (Mah
esh Manjrekar) after a series of unethical
choices. Latika, the frail orphan, ends up like all damsels do.
Completely distressed, first in the brothels and then as the gangster's
keep. But she hasn't given up on love and hope (she knows her love,
Jamal will rescue her), just as the film never gives up on life.

Jamal's journey from the slushy dump of human excreta, through the
nightmarish world of child beggars, ends in the hot seat of the Quiz
Show, where he must confront an arrogant quizmaster (Anil Kapoor) who
is hell bent on showing a lowly chaiwala his true place in society. How
can a chaiwala know all the answers on `MY SHOW', he asks, and tries
his utmost to put an 20end to his rags-to-riches dream run which will see
him winning Rs 20 million as prize money. Little does he realise that
the tumult of life has taught Jamal all the answers, including
seemingly innocuous ones like who wrote the hymn, ` darshan do
ghanshyam ’.

The high point of the film is Anthony Dod Mantel's state-of-the-art
cinematography which serenades Mumbai with unbridled passion. It keeps
pace with the breathless editing and hurtles you through the narrow
alleys of the shanty town, where you can even see the flies on a
sleeping dog or the flash of a menacing steel blade that slits a pretty
face. AR Rahman's music score adds a pulsating beat to the proceedings,

even as Simon Beaufoy's script delicately transforms Vikas Swarup's
novel into a film. But when it comes to performances, it's the kids who
walk away with all your taalis .

Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar), Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) and
Latika (Rubina Ali) are absolutely mesmerising in their first stage, as
three young orphans taking the cruel world in their stride, without
losing out on their childish buoyancy and kinship. Definitely
Dickensian in scope and intent. And definitely, the best part of the
film which captures the protagonists in three different stages.

Forget the Us versus Them debate. Just go for the pure cinema
experience.

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Cuts straight to the heartSlumdog Millionaire : Khalid Mohamed

Cast: Anil Kapoor, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto
Direction: Danny Boyle
Rating: *****

Hats, caps and wigs off. There’s reason to dance on the streets. Here’s
a masterwork of technical bravura, adorned with inspired ensemble
performances and directed with astonishing empathy. Above all, it has
that emotional wallop to make even the stonyhearted cry and laugh out
loud with its little big people.

So a hard rain’s falling over Mumbai. Two pint-s
ized boys have found
shelter, a girl trembles, she could die any minute. After an argument,
she’s allowed entry. That gets you where it matters – in the heart.
Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is a reminder that you may turn your
eyes away from the half-dead street girl begging for a rupee. But she’s
there, be it in India Shining or Dimming.

Freely adapted by Simon Beaufoy from the Vikas Swarup book Q and A, the
screenplay cleverly leapfrogs between different age-spans in the life
of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), who in his 18 years has been through it
all. To snag an autograph of Amitabh Bachchan, Jamal has dived into
slum shit (a shot that’s aff
ectionately funny as it’s yuk). He has
survived a communal riot, lost his mother, escaped from a Fagin-like
boss of maimed kids and scammed tourists (at Agra’s Taj Mahal, no
less). Yet Jamal has not lost his love for that childhood girl in the
rain. Think destiny.

It could be the hidden hand of God, then, which props him on the hot
seat of Kaun Banega Crorepati. Anchorboss (Anil Kapoor, marvellously
smooth) is insulting but Jamal’s unperturbed. He knows the answers. If
not, his guesses are as spot-on as a seasoned casino gambler’s. At the
end of the game show, he longs to walk into a happy ending with his
Rain Girl (Freida Pinto, impressive), never mi
nd if she’s a pawn on a
gangster’s chessboard.

Perhaps, his older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal, first-rate) will quit
his alliance with the underworld too. Now if that’s very Deewaar, oddly
enough Boyle frequently uses Bollywood flourishes: kids separating on
railway tracks, the end-credits group dance, and more coincidences than
you could catch in a TV soap.

More: Jamal’s investigation at a police station for cheating on KBC is
straight out of a Ghayal drama. Only the boy uses his eyes as lethal
weapons instead of battering ram muscles. In effect, the Bombay cinema
touches are taken to another level -- through a non-linear structure
(a second viewing enhanc
es the editing dazzlery between the past and
the present) and Anthony Dod Mantle’s artistic cinematography vaulting
from low angle shots to aerial views of the city.
AR Rahman’s music score moves brilliantly from the implosive to the
explosive in keeping with the Boyle dynamics.The director’s
Trainspotting, by the way, appears to have been a draft for this
Millionairezooming.

Inevitably, that classic ‘forgiveness factor’ is involved in
overlooking several implausible points like the reunion with the
blinded child beggar. Then there are omissions like no visible remorse
for the killed mother, and the allowance of a clipped British accent
for Jamal, excellently portrayed=2
0otherwise by Dev Patel.

Ultimately, the negatives don’t matter because of the film’s three
valuable sub-texts. One, that there’s light at the end of the gutter.
Two, a love story built on dreams must grapple with nightmares. And
last but certainly not the least, the underlying current of secularism
which makes Jamal and his brother Salim, accidental victims of a
communal riot but not its avengers. As Jamal handles his last question,
the entire nation prays for him.

Literally every performance rocks. Still, your heart goes out most of
all to Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubiana
Ali, the kids who portray the knee-high Jamal, Salim and Latika. 0D
They’re extraordinary just like the rest of Slumdog Millionaire. As one
of its songs goes, Jai ho!

A teenager walks in with the host of the game show 'Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire' ('Kaun Banega Crorepati' in the Hindi version) to try out
his luck in life. He sits nervously with dazed eyes. Cut to a slap on
his face and scared eyes in a police station. He is being interrogated
on how he – a slum dweller all his life =E
2 got answers to all 14
questions right and go on to win Rs 1crore. That's the first five
minutes of the movie Slumdog Millionaire aka Slumdog Crorepati. And
these scenes are enough to make you sit upright for the rest of the
movie. The screenplay undoubtedly is the hero of the movie.

Slumdog is a story about a teenager Jamal, who has been taught by life
answers to just the questions that are hurled at him at the game show.
And through these questions we go back to his childhood and struggles
and how he really grew up to become an office assistant who serves tea
at a call centre. We get to know how a riot took away his mother, how
he was saved from being b
linded and grounded as a beggar thereafter and
how he repeatedly lost touch with his childhood soul mate Latika after
efforts of reaching her. In fact, Slumdog is almost one of the sweetest
love stories with all the thrills possible.

While the story of the film is based on the book Q & A by Indian author
Vikas Swarup, the delight of this movie is in the way it is told and
the screenplay as we mentioned right on top. Everything in the film is
done in threes. While there are three stages of Jamal's life played by
three different actors – Dev Patel, Tanay Hemant Chheda and Ayush
Mahesh Khedekar, he had always wanted Latika to be the third musketeer
in his gang whic
h included his brother Salim and him. The Three
Musketeers was the book that was being taught the only time Jamal as a
kid is shown going to school. The 'threes' also extend to the fact that
he stumbles onto Latika thrice throughout his life at different stages.

The film also has its bit of humour once in a while; citing as an
example the scene when Jamal turns Taj Mahal tour guide for foreigners
narrating them fictitious stories about the heritage site.

The Hindi dubbed version does look awkward after you see the English
version simply because of the lip sync problem, but you soon get
comfortable with that, probably due to the fact that most voices used
are of the same 20people we see on screen.

Technically, Slumdog Millionaire has got some of the most innovative
camera work in recent times. Hats off to Anthony Dod Mantle. The film's
editor too deserves praises. Of course, the music by AR Rahman without
a doubt deserves all the praise that he has garnered. The film does
have one of most enthralling background scores by Rahman. But the fact
remains that if this has bagged him an Oscar nomination for original
music, then all his music across the years would have very well been
nominated too. Unfortunately foreign films never have that category of
nominations!

And the film sees some spellbinding performances as well. It's not just
Dev Patel, who 20plays the oldest avatar of Jamal, but also the other
kids who play the younger versions of Jamal and Salim. Tanay Hemant
Chheda, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar (both Jamal's younger avatars), Ashutosh
Lobo Gajiwala and Azharuddin Mo. Ismail (Salim's younger avatar) set
the screen on fire with brilliant performances. Anil Kapoor is just
perfect as the crooked superstar and host of the show. Irrfan Khan
radiates excellence too. Freida Pinto and Madhur Mittal – the oldest
versions of Latika and Salim respectively, hardly have much screen
space. But they are good in the small roles.

Overall, it is really hard to find a fault in Slumdog Millionaire /
Slumdog Crorepati. This is definitely Danny B
oyle's most competent job
till this date, with due respect to Trainspotting. Go ahead guys, get
soaked in excitement. The first time I saw it I almost stood for the
last fifteen minutes out of excitement. And yes, it deserves every
Oscar nomination it has bagged and stands to win! Jai Ho!

PS: This movie could very well be a book for some Indian
directors/producers on how maximum funds are allocated on production
values rather than on stars. Shot entirely in India, Slumdog
Millionaire was budgeted at around # 7 million, which translates to
something around Rs 40crore. That's pretty much a big budget movie in
India along with expensive stars resonating how less producers spend on
=0
Aproduction values of the film!

By Martin D'Souza, Bollywood Trade News Network

What do you say of a movie that has won four Golden Globe Awards and is
nominated in 10 categories at the Oscars? What do you say of a movie
that has already wowed the critics and audience alike in the West? What
do you say of a movie that has released with such rave reviews [minus
doctored media hype]? Well, I just have this to say, it's a brilliant 0D
masterpiece! You don't even need a review to make up your mind to watch
a 'once in a lifetime' experience in Indian cinema. Just go for SLUMDOG
CROREPATI (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE in English). For an Indian to watch the
underbelly of poverty is just another day on the street. This is not to
say that there is no poverty or crime in the West or the dirty
underbelly to explore there. It's just that it's so exposed and 'in
your face' here, that for us, instead of shocking, it has become a way
of life. But for Danny Boyle, the director from the West, he came, he
saw, he sketched and then he captured... and how! It takes a person of
intense creative intelligence to do what Boyle=2
0has done. Cut to cut,
the film is a marvel. The shift in scenes from then to now, as Jamal
Malik (Dev Patel) is on the hot seat with Anil Kapoor on the game show
Kaun Banega Crorepati, is slick. The tracing of the root of every
answer Jamal gives on his way to the winning jackpot is stuff of what
'genius' is all about. Jamal's nerve of not falling in Anil Kapoor's
trap, gives a new meaning to the phrase 'street smart'. Slumdog... is a
movie about a boy from the slums who lands on the hot seat of the game
show. The movie is told in the questions asked and the answers given by
Jamal. It traces his life from childhood [his mother, his struggle to
survive along wi
th his brother, his love and his dreams], till the time
he hits the jackpot. There's action, painful romance, a dash of humour,
life in the slums and the underbelly of crime. Everything is neatly
packaged and delivered to the viewer. Yes, some scenes are unpalatable,
but then that's the reality of life. And Danny Boyle is pulling no
punches... he just delivers them in style. Dev Patel who plays the
central character of Jamal is a fine actor. In fact, he overshadows
Anil Kapoor and the rest of the cast. The younger actors who play Jamal
and his brother Salim are simply awesome. They take you on their
journey with such glee not knowing what's in store at the bend. Freida
Pinto=2
0as Latika is a class act. She lets her eyes do most of the
talking. Mahesh Manjrekar, Irrfan Khan and Saurabh Shukla all lend
credible support. Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala the boy who plays a slightly
older Salim (Jamal's brother) is a revelation. Ditto the boy who plays
the role of a slightly older Jamal. The casting is top notch and Danny
Boyle and his team has to be lauded for giving cinema SLUMDOG CROREPATI
(SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE in English). As for A R Rahman's music and
background score, all that can be said; to sum up the sentiments of
moviegoers is JAI HO!

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'Slumdog Millionaire': Mast-watch!

'Slumdog Millionaire' is every inch a Danny Boyle film.

Hope within squalor, humour within violence - they’re all thematic
trademarks of the British director of druggie drama 'Trainspotting' and
zombie saga '28 Days Later'. This time, Boyle takes his wildly
high-energy visual aesthetic and applies it to a story that, at its
core, is rather sweet and traditionally crowd-pleasing.

Unassuming Dev Patel stars as slumdog underdog Jamal, an 18-year-old
who comes from nothing but is on the verge of winning more money than
anyone has ever won before on the Indi
an version of 'Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire?'. The game show’s host (ideally smarmy and egotistical
Anil Kapoor) grows unshakably suspicious as Jamal prepares to face one
last question for the top prize of 20 million rupees and has him hauled
in for police questioning (by ever-imposing Irrfan Khan).

Simon Beaufoy’s complex script, based loosely on Vikas Swarup’s novel
'Q&A', glides effortlessly among Jamal’s interrogation, his unlikely
success in the television hot seat and his rough-and-tumble upbringing
that provided the life lessons serving him so well now.

Jamal reflects upon the desperate times he shared with his older
brother Salim (Madhur Mittal), after their mothe
r was killed in a
savage anti-Muslim attack. He remembers the cruelty of the Fagin-like
figure who forced them and other orphans into slavery. And he recalls
fondly the time he spent with Latika (stunning former model Freida
Pinto), his first love who, as a scared child, became the brothers’
third Musketeer. (Loveleen Tandan, who cast the film - including the
three sets of actors who play the main characters at various ages - did
so much behind-the-scenes work, she gets a co-director credit.)

Maybe it’s a bit too clever that every question in the game show
happens to have some connection to Jamal’s vividly Dickensian life,
from his encounter with a blind child to
the unfortunate reason he
knows what a Colt .45 is. But that’s the point: witnessing the uplift
of the charmed new life Jamal can now call his own.

'Slumdog Millionaire' won’t let him forget where he came from, though.
Mad dashes through Bombay’s most cramped corners provide a dizzy thrill
with their off-kilter camera angles, despite the dismal scenery (in
that regard the film shares an inescapable bond with Fernando
Meirelles’ equally unflinching 'City of God'). Occasionally, though,
Boyle will take a moment to catch his breath - and let us catch ours -
as he does in a striking overhead shot of the patchwork of tin roofs
under which these children make the
ir homes.

The cinematography from Anthony Dod Mantle (who shot '28 Days Later')
gives even the most depressing images an unexpected beauty, with Chris
Dickens’ expert editing keeping the considerable action moving fluidly.

Then, in the third act, 'Slumdog Millionaire' takes a conventional turn
when everything until then had felt so fresh and new. The mob bosses
who rule Bombay, and with whom arrogant Salim has aligned himself, are
depicted as snarling caricatures. And the relationship between Jamal
and Latika, delicate as it is, reveals them to be little more than a
familiar pair of star-crossed lovers trying to find their way back to
each other. Nevertheless, realism permeates even tha
t aspect of the
film: She’s pragmatic, he’s romantic.

The ending is a joy, though, so make sure you stick around for it.
After all the heavy, emotionally wrenching material that precedes it
for two hours, it’s the perfect final answer.

Diplomat-author Vikas Swarup is more than a millionaire now. But all
the global adulation and limelight that has stalked 'Slumdog
Millionaire', the movie version of his accla
imed novel 'Q and A',
hasn't touched him. "It's a success for India and the story of India,"
says the unassuming diplomat.

"It's a success for India and the story of India," Swarup told us in an
exclusive telephone interview from London.

"What it shows is that stories from India are finding increasing
resonance in the world. There is a huge hunger to know about India,"
Swarup, who is currently India's deputy high commissioner to South
Africa, said.

"It's not about Vikas Swarup's success. It's about India's success,
India being there," said the 47-year-old diplomat who first dreamed of
this captivating story of a Mumbai slum kid winning the million-dollar
quiz show in Allaha
bad, the north Indian city, where he was born and
brought up.

"The novel strikes a chord with ordinary people because it's about
endless possibilities of life - anything is possible. The themes the
novel explores like love, friendship and fate, are universal," he said.

Being a diplomat, Swarup has an inbred talent for projecting India's
soft power. It's Hollywood time for India, he says. "Hopefully, the
success of the book will encourage Hollywood to look more closely at
stories of India and locations in India," he said.

Swarup can expect a champagne treatment from his colleagues in the
external affairs ministry, who are excited about the success of one of
their tribe, when he 20comes to India later this week.

The soft-spoken author, who is a little overwhelmed by the global buzz
his book and the movie version has generated, is not the kind to be
swayed by the four Golden Globe awards 'Slumdog Millionaire' won Monday.

"Many people want a piece of me. My mailbox has been flooded with
congratulatory messages. I have been deluged with interview calls," he
said while faintly complaining about the toll the spectacular success
of 'Slumdog Millionaire' has taken on his private life.

"But I know it fully well deep down success is ephemeral and
transient," he said with a touch of philosophical gravitas.

Swarup, who served as director in then external affairs m
inister K.
Natwar Singh's office before he went to South Africa, is excited about
the prospects of a wider readership for his book after its tryst with
Hollywood.

"It's been huge. It's still sinking in. Let's not forget the ultimate
mass medium in India is movies. The book will now reach more people,"
he said.

Riding on the movie's success in these celebrity-stricken times, Swarup
said publishers have already renamed the book as 'Slumdog Millionaire'.

"That's because that's a trade practice. After the movie's success, it
helps readers to locate the book in bookshops. But that's only for some
time ," he said.

The movie is, however, no surrogate for the tactile experience
of
holding a book in your hands and relating to it in the privacy of your
imagination.

"The film's shelf life is nothing compared to that of the book's. The
book will live long after the movie buzz dies down," he said.
"Ultimately, literature triumphs," he declared in an oracle-like tone.

What's his next book about? Another imaginative version of the
much-hyped India story? No, no, said the author.

"The next book is not based on India or set in India," is all he is
willing to let in on his next literary venture.

"I have already done two books on India. I want to find new inspiration
and new theme," he said.

The story of Slumdog goes back to Swarup's ho
liday breaks in his
hometown Allahabad many years ago. An avid quizzer since his college
days, the hugely popular quiz show presented by Bollywood superstar
Amitabh Bachchan fired his literary imagination. He, however, finally
managed to write the novel 'Q and A' only in the evenings in London
over five years ago when he was posted there as counsellor at the
Indian high commission.

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