Saturday, January 3, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

January 2 is my birthday, and since it occurs at a time of year when everyone, including me, is tired of partying, I always celebrate by taking myself to the movies (and sneaking in a really good beer to enjoy during it!).

Yesterday I saw an exceptional film, "Slumdog Millionaire". This is an Indian film that is getting quite a bit of early Oscar buzz, and for good reason. On the surface it is about a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire", who is accused of cheating, in part because he is an uneducated product of Mumbai's slums. What impressed me was the interesting story-telling technique. The film uses his answering the questions on the show as a method of flashing back and telling the main character's life story. In fact, you have 4 things going on at once: the question of whether he will win the big money on the game, the question of whether the police will be convinced by his story and let him go, the story of his very hard life growing up, and a love story.

This is truly and outstanding and different film, so go see it before it leaves your local theater. And don't leave before the credits run, because, as it is an Indian film, there is a big dance production number at the end.

4 comments:

fiona said...

I have to agree with you as this ranks as one of my favorites for last year - Chris and I went to see it at Thanksgiving which was during the Mumbai siege and it put a lot of things into perspective - been sick all week so I'm catching up on all the movies that I have missed over the last few years via DVD's from the library

ClaireWalter said...

Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear dear Gle-enn.
Happy birthday to you.

Just a litte late, but I didn't know.

My husband saw this and said he almost wretched at the beginning, so I'm thinking it's not my kind of film.

Budd Bailey said...

I won't sing ... but I did put your name in the birthday listings in the paper.

Budd Bailey said...

And now that I've seen the movie ... very original script.

It's pretty odd to think that this movie is competing against "Milk," among other movies, for Oscars.