Lion Roars

Rating: 8/10 (20 February 2017)

Lion finally helped me complete my viewing of all the best picture nominees, and I'd have to agree it deserves a place up there with the other great films.
Lion is the story of a boy in India who gets lost and ends up traveling far from home not knowing where he is. He is then adopted into a family in Australia where he grows up and decides he wants to find his old family. The movie has two distinct parts: young Saroo and older Saroo. The younger of the two steals the show and makes you want to see more of his young bravery.
Nicole Kidman plays his adoptive mother and she does a fine job but Saroo is the central character the entire way and I felt gripped the entire time rooting for him not to give up. The film briefly brings up the idea of leaving your past in the past. It asks the question, if you don't like what you find would you continue searching, but neither of those points are focused on for too long. Besides that brief discussion the main focus of this movie is just watching young Saroo survive surrounded by Indian's but not speaking their native Bengali since he is from another part of the country and speaks Hindi. The movie does a great job showing what many young children face being alone in the streets. As the movie ends, the credits explain there are over 80,000 displaced children like Saroo which really lends weight to the story and makes his one to root for.
Dev Patel plays the older Saroo and he does a great job playing a man who has a conflict of roots. He speaks Australian, almost forgetting his Hindi, and assimilates to the culture. In college he meets Rooney Mara and some other students and while at a dinner party of an Indian friend he sees something that jolts his past square into his present making that search for his family the main focus while trying to juggle his current family.
The music was beautiful and really helped push these emotions home without feeling forced as it so easily could have. The locations were also beautiful, giving a true feel to the streets of Calcutta and the wilderness of India along with Australia as well.
Lion is a must see for this Oscar season with more going for it than not. Great performances especially from newcomer Sunny Pawar as young Saroo along with beautiful music and a feel good story that will have you teary eyed.