Shane Life

Alli and I had two free tickets to the Fork & Screen left over that we needed to use up before the end of January. With all the critical acclaim that Slumdog Millionaire has received up to now, we thought we should check it out before the Oscar nominations come out this week.

I started seeing buzz about Danny Boyle’s tale of love and redemption in Mumbai a few months back and I still have yet to see a poor review.

Slumdog Millionaire centers around a young man named Jamal Malik, who has gotten onto the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and is very near to winning the grand prize of 20 million rupees (approximately half a million dollars), a life-changing amount, especially for someone from the slums of Mumbia like Jamal.

But Jamal is not a typical “slumdog”, a fact we find through flashbacks to his childhood and teenage years. He grows up on the streets with his brother Salim, getting into shenanigans of escalating seriousness.

While this movie certainly shines a light on the poverty of Mumbai and the lengths at which people will go to survive, it’s not about poverty. Slumdog Millionaire is a story of love and determination. Danny Boyle’s film is beautifully photographed, well-acted and very moving. It’s an enjoyable movie that I am glad I saw before the Oscars.

However, I still don’t feel like it was better than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There were times when I wanted to be surprised or taken aback during Millionaire, but found it somewhat predictable. I enjoyed it still, but I wasn’t blown away in the same way that I was with Fincher’s movie.

Still, it is definitely worth seeing and I very much recommend it.