Director: Danny Boyle
Writers: Simon Beaufoy,
Vikas Swarup (novel “Q & A”)
Starring: Dev Patel, Freida
Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar,
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Rubina Ali Tanay, Hemant Chheda, Ashutosh Lobo
Gajiwala, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar, Ankur Vikal, Himanshu Tyagi
I haven’t seen Danny Boyle’s
“Slumdog Millionaire” since about a week before it won the Oscar for Best
Picture in 2009. It’s one of those Best Picture winners that’s kind of easy to
forget about for some reason. Sometimes that’s just what happens to the Best
Picture winners. Sometimes the losers are more memorable. Sometimes ones that
weren’t even nominated were more memorable.
That’s not to say that I don’t
still feel it deserved the Best Picture Oscar that year. Taking the picture
only on its own merits, it’s a strong choice. It is filled with everything that
makes us all fall in love with the movies. It has romance, action, and intrigue.
It’s fun and brutal. It shows us our dreams and our nightmares. It shows us an
exotic land. It orients us with a life unfamiliar. It has good characters, and
even gives us a song and dance over the end credits.
Boyle’s direction and Simon
Beaufoy’s script are terse and energetic. They keep the pace moving at an
action movie’s level, but its subject is a life drama. Boyle immerses his
screen in Indian culture, showing the audience aspects of Mumbai known only to its
citizens. There is a crime element, which populates many of Boyle’s movies,
that is understood as a way of life for the children of Mumbai, but is not a
defining element of their character.
“Slumdog” is still a
beautiful cinematic experience. I don’t agree that it was a “safe” choice for
the Academy to choose for its Best Picture winner that year, as some have
accused. It is a jarring movie with many elements that don’t inherently work
with Academy audiences. They work here because of the skill and artistry with
which they are presented. That is why it is an Oscar winner.
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