CINEMA: Slumdog Millionaire

Although Slumdog could never really live up to the enormous hype surrounding it, this is one British-made movie with worldwide appeal – and a welcome tale of hope, happiness and success it is in these gloomy times.

This is the story of one young man’s rags to Rajah rise, as a son of the slums makes it onto national television and is given the opportunity to win a fortune. The film opens in the sprawling slums of Mumbai where young muslim brothers Salim and Jamal run wild with their mates. But their lives are changed forever when their mother is killed in a religious uprising. Forced to fend for themselves they team up with orphaned Latika and are lured into a life of begging and scavenging in order to survive. As they grow, the brothers choose different destinies with the more hard-hearted Salim (Madhur Mittal) throwing his lot in with the city’s biggest crime lord and taking the blossoming Latika (Freida Pinto) with him, while Jamal (Dev Patel) decides to stay on the right side of the law, although the loss of Latika, his one true love, hits him hard.

A few years later, Jamal is scraping a living as a teaboy for a mobile phone company and waiting for his one chance to win Latika back.  It comes when he becomes a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?  But can a slumdog be trusted? As Jamal keeps answering questions correctly quizmaster Prem (Anil Kappor) smells a rat and it looks like Jamal’s efforts will all be in vain as the police are called in.

Although director Danny Boyle does not shy away from the nastier, harsher side of life on the streets in Mumbai’s desperately impoverished slums, it is the feelgood factor of the film that makes the biggest impression. At no time do you ever stop rooting for Jamal, played with a winning blend of innocence and optimism by young Dev Patel. There is a vibrancy, exuberance and kinetic movement about the action that means the plot never stops rushing relentlessly on – all that bustle and motion mimicking the life of the great city of Mumbai itself.

Our own version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has never been this nail-bitingly exciting and the happy ever after ending is life-affirming rather than being twee. If you want to start the year with a big fat grin on your face, then this is the film guaranteed to put it there.      Dee Pilgrim