A Prodigal Lost in a Labyrinth

Rating: 5/10 (20 January 2017)

'Lion' tells the story of one of the 80,000 children who go missing in India each year. One evening, a 6YO boy called Saroo accompanies his older brother who is searching for work in a nearby town. Left alone at a deserted railway station, he wanders into a stationary train to sleep, and awakens to find himself locked inside an empty moving carriage. One thousand miles later, he disembarks in Calcutta, and quickly becomes lost among its teeming masses. For a while Saroo exists on the streets of this vast megalopolis, ignorant of his own full name and that of his home town. He survives human predators of various kinds, before he's taken in by a sinister orphanage. Eventually he's sent for adoption to Australia, and many years later begins the search for his original family.
Producers are well aware what kind of 'real' stories appeal to mass audiences, and like so many other based-on-true-story projects, 'Lion' is hemmed in by facts. The film is rescued to some extent by excellent acting, but nobody should expect any big surprises - the ending is obvious from the trailer. The script milks the material for maximum emotional impact, which encourages the viewer to forget about the fate of the other 79,999 lost souls.