Slumdog Millionaire

40%

Bizarrely-improbable plotting expecting us to believe that every question asked by a quiz show host would exactly and directly relate to the life of a contestant such that he would have no problem answering them despite his lack of formal education. (Like sitting an exam and finding all the questions are just and only the ones you have revised the past year!) This fatuity is not compensated for by appealing to an audience's sense of emotional plausibility overriding what they know is logically implausible.

This plot is contrived for no emotional reason since issues of Third World poverty are skated over rather than dissected. The puppy love story never rises above the merely cute since the actors cannot convincingly create a romance that transcends time and place as required by the screenplay. And it is the thinness of the script's characterization – not the acting – which creates poor empathy for these characters. The filmmakers were clearly hoping that the kids' adorableness would overcome this problem. However, one of the themes of the film is that the feelings of the characters for one another are more important than 20,000,000 Rupees. But, this requires characterization in depth, otherwise how are we to assess the relative importance of money to them if we do not really know their minds? The Deleted Scenes reveal the esthetic compromises made to keep the film's running time down – yet the characterization would have been deeper had they been left in.

The style is very much borrowed from Bollywood - to good effect – but They Shoot Horses Don't They? this ain't. Undemanding fun, but it is very hard to see what – specifically – garnered this condescending troll through the misery of others eight Academy Awards – unless it was precisely this vicarious troll through other people's misery. It never really rises above the patronizing level of the American tourists giving poor street kids a Benjamin Franklin (100 Dollar bill) to ease their offended consciences – despite having been robbed by those same, Oliver Twist like, street urchins. It is hard not to see this as just another Bob Geldof like slumming through other people's poverty – much like director Danny Boyle's previous movie Millions. The road to hell is certainly paved with good intentions:
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason. T S Eliot (1888–1965), Anglo-American poet, critic. Thomas, in Murder in the Cathedral, part one.

The poor here do indeed suffer mightily, but the confidence trick being played on the audience is that a quiz show, rather than hard work or talent, can somehow obliterate and make up for the hard-won and deeply ingrained lessons of childhood poverty. This fatally undermines any realism that a 15 rated film might attempt; leading us into the kind of fantasyland that a less brutal film would evince. Moreover, the movie cannot decide between Destiny as a force in ones life or Choice; making this a mish mash of themes that never cohere and a confusion of aims that never hits its target. It does not even come out cleanly in favor of choosing ones destiny since winning the quiz show (& two crore Rupees) can simply be a matter of luck, not of Choice or of Destiny.

An oddly materialistic and guilt ridden film pretending to be otherwise.


Article copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved. Frank TALKER is also the author of Sweaty Socks: A Treatise on the Inevitability of Toe Jam in Hot Weather (East Cheam Press: Groper Books, 1997) and is University of Bullshit Professor Emeritus of Madeupology.