SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 2009

Cast: Dev Patel, Ayus Mahesh Khedekar, Madhu Mittal, Frieda Pinto, Rubina Ali and Anil Kapoor
Director: Danny Boyle
Rating: **

Danny Boyle's stiflingly and oppressively visceral film "Slumdog Millionaire" is above all about the realisation that most slum dwellers in Mumbai have no hope whatsoever of escaping their wretched existence. In the end, the movie seems like one giant heap of rotting and fetid urban squalor from which emerges a momentary ray of hope in the form of its protagonists - Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) and Latika (Freida Pinto).

Even though the movie's denouement comes with Jamal wining Rs.20 million on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" as well as his childhood love Latika, you get a sinking feeling that the rest in their world have no prospect of unshackling the iron grip of misery on their lives.


It would be stating the obvious to evoke Dickensian parallels while watching the irredeemably cruel world of vicious adults preying on unsuspecting children and turning them into beggars. I was particularly struck by the clever use of the famous devotional song by the great poet Surdas "Darshan Do Ghanshyam Naath" while blinding a child singer's eyes by pouring acid to make his begging much more effective.


Overall "Slumdog Millionaire" works exceptionally well as a frenzied and largely heartless narrative of Mumbai's slum life if one disregards some contrivances. The sudden burst of anti Muslim rioting, which is always a possibility on the streets of some Indian cities, came across as gratuitous and distinctly out of place.