Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20,000,000 rupees. How did he do it?
A. He cheated
B. He's lucky
C. He's a genius
D. It is destiny...and
E. It's a wow...as in wow
Yes, it is...it is destiny and it's such a wow to see a kind of film like this that's so visually appealing and so warm that it touches my heart in more ways than I can imagine that it made me grab one box of tissue...(just kidding). No wonder it has earned a lot of rave reviews and even top the Oscars for grabbing 10 Oscar nominations second to Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Based on the novel “Q & A” by Vikas Swarup, written for film by Simon Beaufoy and directed by
Danny Boyle, (Trainspotting) this film is more like a modern fairy tale that depicts the life of a boy from a slum in Mumbai India "where lost children and dogs sift through trash so fetid you swear you can smell the discarded mango as well as its peel"and his journey that led him the way to hold on to his ultimate destiny.
Dev Patel (who is just so superb in this movie, I must say) plays the role of Jamal Malik a young man who works in a call center serving tea to it's agents and who's search for his one great love led him to join Who wants to be a Millionaire?" He amused audience by being able to answer all its tough questions despite the fact that he's an illiterate who grow up in slum. Believing that he was cheating he was arrested and even tortured by the police. Thus paving the way to tell his story from the time he got orphan at a very tender age along with his brother Salim after the death of their mother during an Anti-Musliom riot, to that fateful incident that forced them to face harsh realities in life but then paved the way to meet Jamal's one great love Latika. And how each journey he made gives him a clue to answer all those questions.
Danny Boyle successfully trancscends this film from the present and then to the past with its vivid descriptive narration. He does not only showcase the way of life in slum areas in India but also showcases the kind of life of poverty stricken country all over the world. The film magnifies how people get so amused to every game show that offers million bucks of money for a pize as a resort to alleviate them from poverty. It is very evident to one of it's scenes when all the people in slum areas watch the episode in which Jamal will finally answer the 20,000,000 ruppee question and how they celebrate with him when he gives the right answer eventually making him an instant multi millionaire. They sympathize with him, they see themselves with him and join in his triumph that a poor man who grow up in slum can indeed answer even the hardest of questions and become a millionaire with only experience, wisdom and lessons in life learned as his weapons.
Despite the movie's dirty setting and some of it's violent scenes the main characters optimism towards life and it's humor make it like so light and warm that you feel like you're watching an heart warming, poignant love story with a thrill. (There's this one particular scene that actually makes me want to jump from my seat.) This movie is guaranteed to make you cry, laugh and gives you the feeling of wanting to fall in love over and over and over again. Two thumbs up!!!
Let me end this by thanking Jamal Malik by leaving a great lesson in life: There's no worth a prize than finally seeing again the face of your one true love...ahhhhh.... And that one is no cheating.
Un na!!!^_^
1 Comment:
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January 28, 2009 at 3:50 AM
Indeed. :)
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