SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Directed by Danny Boyle
Produced by Christian Colson
Written by Simon Beaufoy, based on novel by Vikas Swarup
Released by Fox Searchlight
USA/India. 120 min. Rated R
With Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla, Madhur Mittal & Freida Pinto 
 

A crowd pleaser despite its flaws, Danny Boyle’s sensational Slumdog Millionaire artfully but formulaically stimulates our nerve centers for tragedy, comedy, and romance. Set in the color-drenched landscapes of India, the rags-to-riches fairy tale tells the unlikely story of Jamal (newcomer Dev Patel), a gentle orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who makes it onto the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and finds himself one question away from winning 20 million rupees. When the show breaks for the day, the wunderkind gets whisked away to a brutal interrogation, since a slumdog with no formal education could only have fared so well by cheating.

To explain how he came to know all the answers, Jamal recounts the life experiences behind his serendipitous knowledge, and the interrogation (performed by veteran actors Irrfan Khan of The Namesake and Saurabh Shukla) becomes the main narrative vehicle for the film. Though this setup is highly contrived and the tension manipulatively piggybacks on the natural tension of the quiz show, the result is pure entertainment. Jamal’s stories unfold in whirlwind chapters, from his impoverished but happy childhood (played by real children from the slums with devastating sincerity), to a harsh adolescence filled with gangs, cruelty, and many brushes with death. Accompanied by his morally feeble brother Salim and the beautiful Latika, a fellow orphan who veers in and out of his life, Jamal traces his wanderings practically to the day of the show, revealing his true motivation for being a contestant.

What elevates Slumdog Millionaire to an onslaught of visual pleasure (though certainly not high art) is the energetic camerawork and the soundtrack. The music oscillates from a romantic score à la Titanic to hip Indian ditties and even club favorite M.I.A. The scenes are impossibly shot on choked Mumbai streets and vast putrid landfills, capturing Indian life with the integrity and honesty of a high-budget documentary. Though the story is meant as a fictional escape, it integrates a sweeping chunk of India’s political reality—from the violent tension between Muslims and Hindis to Bombay’s commercial metamorphosis into a towering Mumbai. But the film’s best move is to temper the drama and sentimentality with constant doses of humor and to wash away the brutality with a closing, groove-inducing song-and-dance number. Yana Litovsky
November 13, 2008