Don't Miss Out on One of the Best Movies of the Year!

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2017)

Lion is a movie that flew under my radar for most of 2016. It was not until it started getting some awards season buzz that I really ever started seeing it brought up around the internet and I was honestly a little skeptical. Being that I did not know much about it anyway, I decided to keep myself in the dark a bit other than looking at the short IMDb summary and looking up the director, who happens to be making his feature film debut, I did not know much going in. I was happy to find that Lion is definitely a movie that belongs on year end lists and may just pull off some upsets when the awards are handed out.
Lion tells the story of Saroo Brierley who when the movie starts is a young boy in an incredibly impoverished small town in India. His mother works moving rocks, so they are basically the poorest people in the world. One night Saroo wakes up as his older brother Guddu is leaving to go to work. Saroo begs to be brought with Guddu, but ends up getting lost at a train station, and then accidentally falls asleep on a train that takes him far away from his hometown. The movie takes you through the frightening trip Saroo takes and into his adult years after being adopted by Australian parents. Saroo then tries desperately to track down his family and find his way back to his home.
Director Garth Davis is a rookie to feature films, but he does not show any signs of being a rookie in Lion. Lion is a beautifully filmed movie, and Davis gets some incredible performances from not only child actors, but complete unknowns who do not even speak English. I cannot put into words how proud of these child actors I am. They captured something about childhood that is so far beyond normal acting ability, and this is also a real testament to Davis as well. The movie moves really well and comes up just short of 2 hours which is always appreciated. Lion is not an easy first movie to tackle, but Garth Davis has put up one of the most impressive efforts of the year.
The rest of the performances are really good as well. Dev Patel has already proved himself to be a great actor and he brings his A game in Lion. Adopting a convincing Australian accent and the fact that he is really only in about half of the movie would make a lot of lesser actors turn the role down. He owned this role and while he probably will get passed up for awards this is a great addition to the filmography. Most of the rest of the characters are in decidedly supporting roles, but Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara both come pretty strong while not trying to take the movie over.
Lion is also one of the better written movies of the year, while there are some times in the middle to latter points of the movie that lag, it is still a compelling journey and stands as the only movie of 2016 that got be to cry pretty openly, and more than once. Most of the movie is a bummer to be honest, but the good moments make up for that and those depressing moments make the happy ones that much better. I highly recommend Lion to any true movie fan. It is a fantastically made movie with heart and drama in it, but also some really great moments of boyhood that are genuine in any language. I don't see Lion stealing many awards away from Manchester by the Sea or Moonlight, but it certainly deserves to be in the race, and if it did snag some awards I would not make much of an argument.