Review: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Let's kick off the year (and the blog) with a release from last year that I didn't get to until last week. Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie to start with because, well, it's just a great movie, period.

Funny thing about this movie, its title might at first be offputting. When I first mentioned it to my mom, her reaction was something along the lines of "oh, he's seeing one of THOSE movies again." After I clarified that "slumdog" is a term for a poor person from the slums of Mumbai, and the "millionaire" part is because he appears on India's version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, a light dawned, and she said "oh, he's seeing one of THOSE movies again."

Odd title aside, Slumdog Millionaire is simply breathtaking. The lead characters are poetically fleshed out through a series of vignettes beginning in early childhood and continuing through early adulthood. The music is a joyful mixture of South Asian and Western styles, and suits the settings and the story perfectly. The story, though, ah, the story. That's the thing.

It's not so much the story itself, but the way it is told that elevates Slumdog Millionaire to greatness. This is not to imply other weakness--the pacing is perfect and the threads of plot are wonderfully woven. It's just that the parallel timelines and Q&A mechanic of the storytelling is as brilliant a device as the brain bending time manipulation of 2000's Memento. I'm not sure who to thank for the way Slumdog plays out: the novelist, for the book Q&A on which the movie is based, the screenwriter, for his adaptation, or the brilliant director Danny Boyle, who can make a scene emote as powerfully as any individual character.

The movie begins in the video monitors of the Indian Who Wants To Be A Millionaire TV show, moves to a rough police interrogation, then follows the antics of a pair of Muslim brothers in the slums of what was then Bombay. These three parallel tales, the TV show, the interrogation, and the adventures of Jamal, his elder trouble magnet brother Salim, and their fellow orphan, the sweet Latika, continue throughout the film. Eventually everything comes together in a romantic Hollywood-meets-Bollywood ending.

The thing that struck me about the story telling was that each of the three parts could almost stand on its own as a short film. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is a popular show, and for good reason. It's got tension, drama and even a conversational side with the banter between the host and the contestant. The movie takes it one step further and peeks behind the scenes at the scheming of the egomaniacal host. In front of the cameras he applauds the answering ability of Jamal the chai walla. But is he smiling for the cameras or gritting his teeth? Bollywood vet Anil Kapoor plays the smarmy host Prem Kumar with just the right touch of villainy.

The police interrogation, which actually begins as an unpleasant torture sequence, provides the scaffolding for the rest of the story. Even so, it stands on its own as a story of a young man's grim determination, and the eventual acquiescence of the stern police inspector who, in the end, has to recognize the truth. It also provides a bit of comic relief in the form of an overeager subordinate who never seems to do the right thing. It is these scenes where relative newcomer Dev Patel really shines. His Jamal shows weariness and conviction, innocence and experience in equal measure.

The main line of the story is related as Jamal explains to the police inspector how a mere slumdog could know all the answers to the Millionaire questions. It begins with the story of how Jamal and his brother were orphaned in the Bombay riots of the early 90's. From a very early age, it is clear that the paths of the elder Salim and the younger Jamal are intertwined, but lead in very different directions. Each story behind a question's answer is captivating, each revealing more about Jamal, Salim, and Jamal's beloved Latika.

Eventually the stories catch up with the current day, and everything is tied up in a big finish that is tidy, tragic on the one hand, and romantic on the other. And after the movie, stay for the credits, and the obligatory Bollywood dance sequence!

Slumdog Millionaire is definitely my pick for best movie released in 2008, and that's not just because I'm losing my memory and it's the most recent movie I've seen. So go out and see it. In spite of the title.