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Slumdog Millionaire, 2008
Jamal (Dev Patel) is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. When he goes on a seemingly improbable run of correct answers, he is brutally interrogated by a police captain (Irrfan Khan) on suspicion that he is somehow cheating. Jamal explains how he knew each answer, recounting the life of hardship and tragedy he faced while trying to survive in the slums with his older brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), and attempting to save his first love, Latika (Freida Pinto) from a life of servitude and debasement.
Another Oscar winner that left me cold.
There's a young adult book called A View from Saturday where four children compete on a quiz show, and after each question you get a flashback to how they knew the answer. While I found this structure charming as a fifth grader, in this film I found it grating and it totally strained my suspension of disbelief. Like, really, EVERY significant moment in this kid's life involved learning a fact that later became a piece of trivia on a TV show?
Apart from glimpses of humor here or there that worked for me, or pleasant surprises like the participation of Irrfan Khan, I never managed to sink into this film. The artificiality of the structure, and the heightened style of it all kept me at arm's length from beginning to end. It is unbearably choppy, and never takes a moment to breathe.
One definite highlight is Dev Patel, who manages to exude a kind of warmth and depth that holds your attention in all of his scenes. I would actually say that all of the actors were okay, even the little kids, but this is not a structure that lets characters develop in a meaningful way.
There's a kind of cloying sentimentality here that often bothers me (I feel this way about Shawshank Redemption, another crowd favorite), and I just have to grit my teeth when I see its 8/10 IMDb rating. To me, this is the cinematic equivalent of empty calories. I generally enjoy Boyle's films, and I really like several of the cast members, but this one let me down big time.
Slumdog Millionaire, 2008
Jamal (Dev Patel) is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. When he goes on a seemingly improbable run of correct answers, he is brutally interrogated by a police captain (Irrfan Khan) on suspicion that he is somehow cheating. Jamal explains how he knew each answer, recounting the life of hardship and tragedy he faced while trying to survive in the slums with his older brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), and attempting to save his first love, Latika (Freida Pinto) from a life of servitude and debasement.
Another Oscar winner that left me cold.
There's a young adult book called A View from Saturday where four children compete on a quiz show, and after each question you get a flashback to how they knew the answer. While I found this structure charming as a fifth grader, in this film I found it grating and it totally strained my suspension of disbelief. Like, really, EVERY significant moment in this kid's life involved learning a fact that later became a piece of trivia on a TV show?
Apart from glimpses of humor here or there that worked for me, or pleasant surprises like the participation of Irrfan Khan, I never managed to sink into this film. The artificiality of the structure, and the heightened style of it all kept me at arm's length from beginning to end. It is unbearably choppy, and never takes a moment to breathe.
One definite highlight is Dev Patel, who manages to exude a kind of warmth and depth that holds your attention in all of his scenes. I would actually say that all of the actors were okay, even the little kids, but this is not a structure that lets characters develop in a meaningful way.
There's a kind of cloying sentimentality here that often bothers me (I feel this way about Shawshank Redemption, another crowd favorite), and I just have to grit my teeth when I see its 8/10 IMDb rating. To me, this is the cinematic equivalent of empty calories. I generally enjoy Boyle's films, and I really like several of the cast members, but this one let me down big time.