Saturday, January 24, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

Last night we saw Slumdog Millionaire in a packed theatre. A fast paced and slickly shot and edited film that I was expecting to like a lot less. I always get a little leery of films that get a lot of hype. This film is getting a lot of hype and I think it deserves it.

A story of star-crossed lovers and a life story told through a character answering questions on the Indian version of the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The story's structure reveals itself within the first ten minutes of the film and once I realized how the story was going to be told I thought this format would quickly become tired. However, the past and present flow together seamlessly and the past comes rushing to the present at just the right moment in the film, the climax of the story.

The performances are strong especially the children's performances.

See it on the big screen if you can because some of the overhead shots are spectacular and I think the pace works well on a large screen.

3 comments:

S.M. Elliott said...

I'd like to see this. Danny Boyle hasn't disappointed me yet.
There's a lawsuit being brought against the two main actors by actual residents of Indian slums who say the movie defamed them. Kinda strange.

Wandering Coyote said...

I'm glad you liked it. I thought it was pretty good, too.

sp said...

SME, that is strange. I hadn't heard of this yet and just looked it up on-line. I thought the point of using the word "Slumdog" was to point out how people who live in the slums are viewed and how unfair that is. The main character is educated as well, but gains his education in a less traditional way. Or at least that's how I saw it.