Slumdog Millionaire won 4 golden globe and is a mighty contender for the Oscars. More importantly, it brought to India the first ever globe.
The movie has achieved such high acclaim and recognition all over the world that I HAD to watch it. Let me play devil’s advocate here...I felt unsatisfied after the movie. Please note my use of term unsatisfied and not disappointed. Its not a bad movie by any means. It is a nicethe triumph of good against all odds kind of movie, but really is this movie that good to sweep all the awards at the second most prestigious awards in the world? I beg to differ.
It is a well made movie and is well scripted. The story as such is not a masterpiece but the clever screenplay does the charm. I feel that the script takes a bit of cinematic liberties as well as cinematic inconsistencies.....the people talking in English to each other?In Mumbai? That too brothers? Agreed it maybe to cater the western interests, but why then bother providing subtitles when they were kids? And by the way in which part of world is KBC telecast live?
Ok, I might be nitpicking here, it might be a fantasy or a feel good movie, but heck it’s not a realistic movie as the media is portraying it to be. To project it as the true depiction of rags-to-riches tale is absolute rubbish. I have not yet seen the other probable (milk, curious case of.., revolution road etc) contenders for the best movie, but if I go by the past track record at the awards, I am certain that we have come across ‘real’ realistic films . This could, at best, be described as a well made masala movie and so all the hoopla about this being a realistic movie or is a bit far stretched. All I can assume is the westerners were very pleased to see Mumbai as they want it to be seen- poverty struck nation with huge slums and beggars.
I don’t have complains about the acting department. The kid Jamal, Salim and Lathika are one of the best I have ever seen on screen. They were at absolute ease and were literally living in those roles. Same can be said about Dev Patel too. His nonchalance even as he kept winning millions was exactly the emotion I would expect of one who’s answers are based on own life tragedies.
I would call it a a well shot, well directed potboiler with all the ingredients to entertain the audience. It deserves to be a hit, but definitely not a milestone movie. It is one of those feel good movies. Infact it resembled a bollywood movie more (and that could be intentional) but again, thats not one expects from a academy award nominated/winner movie.
I know majority would disagree with my comment on this movie. Maybe the huge hype and rave reviews about the movie made me expect much more it failed to meet my own heightened expectation. I anticipated the movie to be path breaking, whereas it ended up being one in path less trodden.It was a movie I enjoyed as long as it lasted.
And by the way, ARR will win the award even if he’s pitted against all the music scores ever made in Hollywood.....see how much the music is integrated to the movie to know his genius!
AVS
The movie has achieved such high acclaim and recognition all over the world that I HAD to watch it. Let me play devil’s advocate here...I felt unsatisfied after the movie. Please note my use of term unsatisfied and not disappointed. Its not a bad movie by any means. It is a nicethe triumph of good against all odds kind of movie, but really is this movie that good to sweep all the awards at the second most prestigious awards in the world? I beg to differ.
It is a well made movie and is well scripted. The story as such is not a masterpiece but the clever screenplay does the charm. I feel that the script takes a bit of cinematic liberties as well as cinematic inconsistencies.....the people talking in English to each other?In Mumbai? That too brothers? Agreed it maybe to cater the western interests, but why then bother providing subtitles when they were kids? And by the way in which part of world is KBC telecast live?
Ok, I might be nitpicking here, it might be a fantasy or a feel good movie, but heck it’s not a realistic movie as the media is portraying it to be. To project it as the true depiction of rags-to-riches tale is absolute rubbish. I have not yet seen the other probable (milk, curious case of.., revolution road etc) contenders for the best movie, but if I go by the past track record at the awards, I am certain that we have come across ‘real’ realistic films . This could, at best, be described as a well made masala movie and so all the hoopla about this being a realistic movie or is a bit far stretched. All I can assume is the westerners were very pleased to see Mumbai as they want it to be seen- poverty struck nation with huge slums and beggars.
I don’t have complains about the acting department. The kid Jamal, Salim and Lathika are one of the best I have ever seen on screen. They were at absolute ease and were literally living in those roles. Same can be said about Dev Patel too. His nonchalance even as he kept winning millions was exactly the emotion I would expect of one who’s answers are based on own life tragedies.
I would call it a a well shot, well directed potboiler with all the ingredients to entertain the audience. It deserves to be a hit, but definitely not a milestone movie. It is one of those feel good movies. Infact it resembled a bollywood movie more (and that could be intentional) but again, thats not one expects from a academy award nominated/winner movie.
I know majority would disagree with my comment on this movie. Maybe the huge hype and rave reviews about the movie made me expect much more it failed to meet my own heightened expectation. I anticipated the movie to be path breaking, whereas it ended up being one in path less trodden.It was a movie I enjoyed as long as it lasted.
And by the way, ARR will win the award even if he’s pitted against all the music scores ever made in Hollywood.....see how much the music is integrated to the movie to know his genius!
AVS
2 comments:
Aravind -> I agree with some and disagree with some other points that you have written here. For instance, I disagree that the westerners enjoyed the movie sheerly bcoz it showed india as a poverty stricken third world country. what it represents is a very small sector of a booming city like mumbai and believe me, havin gbee there I can tell u this is exactly how Dharavi is... and there's no exaggeration there.
I do agree that it's bizarre to suggest that KBC is telecast live and that all the inquiry that they did with Jamal lasted only one night and he came looking quite dapper event he second night. But it's a movie.. and I think it's been well-shot overall. And the kids were adorable. Consider this a "Monsoon Wedding" type movie where the speech is mostly English.. that's perhaps its biggest flaw.
well, yeah it can be considered as a monsoon wedding kind of film....but it was at max a crossover film....it didnt pretend to be a realistic one!
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