ACT 3/SCENE 146: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

I finally caught a screening of Danny Boyle’s much-lauded “Slumdog Millionaire” the other day and I can understand now why there’s been such a wave of critical and audience admiration for the film. It’s currently sitting at a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s on more critics’ “Top 10 of 2008” lists than I can count and it’s almost certainly going to be nominated for an Academy Award later this month. It’s a passionate and energized display of filmmaking by Boyle ("Shallow Grave," "Trainspotting," "28 Days Later") capturing a slice of life in a world (in this case; the slums of Mumbai, India) not often seen by western audiences. It’s a crowd pleasing romance about hope cast against the backdrop of a nation in the midst of crippling poverty and burgeoning economic volatility. For these reasons and many more, I can completely understand why so many people have come to love this movie. I’m just not one of them.

Please don’t get me wrong; I like the movie... maybe even a lot. But there is this nagging artificiality about the movie that prevents me from really connecting with it on both a visceral and intellectual level. Was it the sudden and completely unexplained language shift the main characters of Jamal and Salim made from Hindi to English halfway into the movie? Was it the fact that despite its independent arthouse charms, the movie is still - at its core - a piece of classical Hollywood fairy tale making? Or was it that “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” - a show I kind of despise - plays such a huge role in the plot and thematic premise of the movie that most irked me? I’m really not sure. I suppose I’ll have to watch it again before I really get a grip on my minor problems with what is an otherwise excellent movie.

If I’m being honest, my issues with the movie may reflect more about my own cinematic biases than any shortcomings in the filmmaking. Perhaps I was expecting too much in thinking the movie could impact me like some modern hybrid of “Pather Panchali” and “City of God.” Maybe I am looking at the “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” component too much like a Westerner when I should be considering what a show like that means to a nation in which a majority of the population lives in third world conditions. I lived in the Philippines for several years and vividly recall the sight of absolute and abject poverty. It’s a jarring sight in person and this movie definitely reminded me of those memories. Could it be there was a part of my subconscious that flinched with Pavlovian negativity at the images of the Mumbai ghetto depicted in the movie?

It’s absolutely possible - if not probable - that I’m over-thinking this. I said it’s a good movie. I said I liked the movie. Isn’t that enough? Will it make my Top 10 list when December 2009 rolls around and I have 200 or more movies to consider? In any case, I’ve got several more movies I want to see in the next week or two - including a few other so-called Oscar contenders - so stay tuned for more movie reviews to come (and please don’t roll your eyes at me).

Ken Cheng
Los Angeles, CA