107. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

107. (11 May) The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012, John Madden)* 61

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire, 208
Directed by Danny Boyle
Nominated for 10 Oscars, Won 8

Synopsis: Jamal Malik is an eighteen year old uneducated boy from the Slums of India. And he's one question away from winning India's Who Want To Be a Millionaire. But how could a boy, who's uneducated and from the slums, know answers and get farther than doctors and lawyers have? Jamal shows us, exactly how every question is answered, showing us his life growing up.


I'm going to start this off right now and tell you that my favourite film of 2008 was David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Yes, that long one, with Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, who aged backwards. While it was my favourite, I know and accept why it didn't win Best Picture, and why Slumdog did. Slumdog Millionaire was very deserving of the title.

The film was well-done in the way of telling Jamal's back story. The little boys who play him, and his brother Salim, were most excellent and I thought they were quite brilliant. They were hilarious, but they also dealt with the hard things in life, and saw so many things that many of us will never see in our lives.I appreciated the fact that, while this was sort of a story about Jamal's life, we saw the significance in everything. While I felt the love story line to be slightly detracting about from the film, overall it was well balanced between focusing on Jamal's life, and showing us how he knew all the answers.

The cinematography was quite excellent. Similar to The Hurt Locker, is was shaky, and "unprofessional" looking most times (especially when in the slums), and made you feel like you were there with Jamal and Salim. It creatively and beautifully portrayed the slums, the cities, the Taj Mahal, and everything in between. We see shots us children digging through trash, and being abused by cops, and just playing and having fun, not having much of a care in the world.  The colours were beautiful, and the use of Indian music in the film was great. 

Having a lot of speaking of Hindi in the film was well done, and felt more realistic, though often times it would randomly switch back into English. I'd have rather one or the other spoken, for continuities sake, but what can I do. Again, the little boys we are first introduced to were great, and were the best actors in the film. I thought they portrayed everything so well, and were great little actors.


This film gave so much interesting insight to the culture of India; the living conditions, the poverty, and exactly what people (children and adults alike) will do for money, including lie, cheat, steal and murder. It's an uncomfortable look that forces us to evaluate and certainly appreciate what we have, because there are so many others around the world who don't have what we do. It has such a strong story about real life poverty. Not the poverty we see on the TV ads, or read about in an article then don't look at again. It's a story of one boy's life, and how he deals with it, all the trouble he gets into, how awful he life really was, and how he still came out on top, knowing most of the answers on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? This film was well done because it didn't shy away from anything. While some of the violence was unnecessary, many of it was completely necessary because that's just what goes on, and it happens. And is still happening. While the plot of the story, wasn't all that believable and was lapped in story cliches at the end, it was an interesting look into India.

This film definitely opened my eyes up to the rest of the world, and how fortunate I am to have the life I do, while I shall continue to pray and help other less fortunate than I am.

Rating: 7.25/10

Slumdog Millionaire

“Slumdog Millionaire” is one of the best films of the year, one that is sure to grab many Oscar nominations, and deservedly so.

I knew next to nothing about it going in, which may have helped. Beautifully directed by Danny Boyle (“28 Days Later”) it’s one of the best looking films of the year, as well as one of the most emotionally engaging.

In a nutshell, “Slumdog Millionaire” relates the story of Jamal (Dev Patel), a young man who is winning a large amount of money on India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. Despite having no education and growing up in poverty, he knows all the answers. The host is suspicious and has the police kidnap and torture Jamal to find out how he is cheating.

During the show’s taping, and his interrogation, we get flashbacks to his childhood spent in extreme poverty and minor criminal activity, like pick pocketing and participating in con games. Orphaned due to rioting, Jamal and his brother Salim eke out an existence on the streets of Mumbai, where they are taken by a Fagin-like mentor. The film follows the brothers through their lives.

I’m making the film sound more grim than it is, and while there are horrifying sequences of abuse and torture, there’s also comedy, love, and heartbreak – a lot like life. Many incidents are shown as the story moves back and forth in time, but Boyle is such a good director and the three sets of actors he has portraying the three leads at different points of their lives are so strong that I had no trouble following it.

There’s also a very touching love story that spans several decades, as Jamal becomes friends with a young orphan girl named Latika. They lose touch but he never stops thinking about her, or looking for her. Latkia grows up and becomes the object of desire of many men. She is played by an actress named Freida Pinto and she is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in a movie. I think we’ll be seeing more of her, not just for her dazzling smile, but for her warm and engaging presence

There’s other visual attractiveness on display besides Ms. Pinto. The cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle is breathtaking; one practically inhales the sights of India. He is sure to get an Oscar nomination, and likely the statue itself, as will Editor Chris Dickens, who juggles the three different time strands with relative ease. The score by A.R. Rahman is also one of the year’s best.

And for a most satisfying coda, we get a Bollywood-style musical number with the cast during the end credits.

Despite my great enthusiasm for the film, I’m only giving it three and half stars out of four. There’s so much to take in and absorb, that I’m not sure I could properly appreciate it on one viewing. I have little doubt that a second viewing would easily boost it to a four star rating.