The Best of Pictures: Slumdog Millionaire (2008), by Josh Long

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008)
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Written by: Simon Beaufoy
Starring: Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor

So this Spring, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Academy Awards, making it one of the 15 biggest winning Oscar contenders of all time. Pretty impressive, especially for a film set in India 1, seeing as most Americans only know India as a place where they worship cows, where you can see the Taj Mahal, and where they probably have pretty good Chicken Masala.

If you’ve followed Danny Boyle’s career, you might think this movie seems a stretch for him – he first gained notoriety with the gritty drug movie Trainspotting in 1996, and his most recent success was the horror thriller 28 Days Later. And now we have Slumdog Millionaire – no zombies, no foul-mouthed British junkies, no Ewan McGregor; what’s ‘ol Danny up to?

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the movie is about a young Indian boy (India Indian, not native American 2) who is a contestant on India’s answer to “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Jamal (the boy) is a nobody, from a slum town, with no education to speak of. Naturally, the powers that be are suspicious as he makes it through the show with correct answer after correct answer. When foul play is suspected, the police question Jamal, and we flash back as we learn that each of the questions has an answer rooted in his past. It deals with love, family, purpose, and the way they’re all connected through destiny.

Where Slumdog gains success is its synthesis of the harsh reality of Trainspotting with the wide-eyed childish idealism of 2004’s Millions, a story of a young British boy who accidentally discovers a bag full of money, and has to decide what to do with it. It’s about the triumph of the human spirit 3, but has the guts to show society’s dark underbelly. It makes very frank statements about the quality of life in India, made all the more poignant by rumors that one of the child actors from the film was put up “for sale” by her father. The film is not afraid to shoot in real slums, and give audiences an idea of what life there is like.

While the film is undeniably very Indian, the boy’s struggles have a universal quality to them. Jamal’s story is almost Dickensian, running away from home after he is orphaned, taken in by a band of criminals who “employ” children as beggars, searching for the girl of his childhood dreams. The story is very relatable, while keeping true to its setting. Anyone who has seen it will tell you that the children who play young Jamal, his brother Salim and his friend Latika are a highlight of the movie – their performances are so natural and engaging that you can’t help but root for them. Having these characters at the beginning of the movie really draws the viewer in – I honestly think that without these kids, the movie would not have nearly the same appeal. The actors who play the older kids are good, but they can’t compete with the younger ones. They get us early, and once we’re in, we’re in.

All that said, one of the things that weakens the film for me is that the appeal is almost too general. What’s the message? Family ties are important, love is wonderful when you can find it, and destiny may have great things in store for even the smallest of us. Sure, they’re all great uplifting things, but there’s nothing challenging. In a way, it takes a dangerous intrigue situation in a place where police brutality and child slavery are still prevalent and turns it into a feel-good movie. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it irresponsible, but there is a feeling of untapped potential. Still, the generality is one of the things that made it (in my opinion) a shoe-in for 2008’s Best Picture. It makes everybody happy, and while movies like The Reader or Doubt might present much more challenging stories, Slumdog is the most fun to watch. It’s fast paced, based in exotic locations, and makes us feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

We’re too close to the film now to have any kind of historical retrospective, but I would guess it won’t go down in history as a great piece of cinema. It’s engaging, enjoyable and has moments that stick in your head 4, but it doesn’t show us something new, or tell us a story in a way we’ve never heard before. I like to draw a distinction between a “movie” and a “film” – a “movie” is filmed entertainment, while a “film” is intended as a work of art. Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie – but it’s not a work of art. Of course this is a lot to ask from the Academy Awards, to assume that every year there must be some piece of cinema that will eternally be remembered as “great.” The movies have bad years – in my opinion, 2008 was one of them. But overall, it’s certainly a film worth seeing, and a sensible choice for 2008’s Best Picture.

1 Fun Fact: other Best Picture winners not set principally in an English-speaking country: All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany, 1930), Grand Hotel (Germany, 1931), The Life of Emile Zola (France, 1937), Casablanca (Morocco, 1943), Hamlet (Denmark, 1948), An American in Paris (France, duh, 1951), Bridge on the River Kwai (Burma, 1957), Gigi (France, 1958), Ben-Hur (Israel, Rome, etc., 1959), Lawrence of Arabia (Middle East, 1962), The Sound of Music (Austria, 1965), Ghandi (India, 1982), Amadeus (Austria, 1982), Out of Africa (Kenya, 1985), Platoon (Vietnam, 1986), The Last Emperor (China, 1987), Schindler’s List (Germany, 1993), Gladiator (Ancient Rome, 2000), and I suppose you’d count Return of the King (Middle-Earth?, 2003).

2 As Good Will Hunting would put it, “dots, not feathers.” I’m aware this isn’t PC. It’s funny though.

3 This always makes me think of “Freebird,” which is definitely about the triumph of the human spirit, and that makes me think of Elizabethtown, which may or may not be about the triumph of the human spirit; I didn’t notice because I was too busy hating Orlando Bloom’s American accent.

4 There’s some good imagery in there, several images with trains which may be references to Satyajit Ray’s iconic Pather Panchali (put it in your Netflix, it’s great), or may just be because hey, lots of people travel by train in India. Wes Anderson also made obvious train references in The Darjeeling Limited, but that one was an unashamed tribute to Ray, right down to the Ravi Shankar soundtrack.