Authentically touching and beautifully done, nearly 10/10

Rating: 9/10 (22 February 2017)

Zero spoilers: Soulful without being trite, Lion is a journey film that explores the tie of family, the way we map our memories, and the longing to fully understand identity. Ranging from India to Australia, this chronicles a spirited boy becoming a quiet but determined man, a focused dreamer. Performances and story are a solid 10, with only a few aesthetic choices in camera department and a few issues of narrative focus robbing it for what would be a perfect score and one of the best films of the past few years.
Dev Patel is mesmerizing, as are every one of the Indian actors who grace the screen for the first half of the film. Beginning with phenomenal aerial photography, the camera offers gorgeous visual narration and draws us into the themes of place and displacement from the first flicker of the projector.
The editing is also sensational, with beautiful pacing and way-- creating tension then exploring memory. The film rarely drags or feels that it is rushing.
Really, close to perfect. The aesthetic and narrative adjustments that I would have made come down primarily to preference-- the lighting, framing, and cinematographic choices made during a few scenes drew me out of the narrative, and as a fussy film festival director I could pinpoint them but it wouldn't matter.
A few moments made me loose a bit of faith in the aesthetic cohesiveness because of a feeling that things vacillated from a "shooting commercials" look to a more self- conscious indie style shoot (which I found unconvincing given the grandeur of the film, and unflattering to several of the female actors, there seemed to be an unawareness of portraiture in some key scenes that involved women). Additionally, it was a sad oversight that there were no female characters in the entire film that existed other than to forward the male story-- while there were fantastic female characters and wonderful performances by a number of actresses (NK, RM, and the Indian orphanage lady as well as another female key character spring to mind)-- still, when there is license to translate a real story into cinema there is also license to expand some of the characters, Nicole Kidman's mother had such depth it would have been easy to have a scene with her and a female friend that showed more of her depth of life outside the frame of being "the mom," or Roony Mara's "girlfriend" who also interacted with no other women. In an era in which awareness of the Bechdel test is so prevalent, and there are increasingly multi- faceted and wonderful roles for women as there are in this film-- it would really have been thoughtful and expanded the scope of story to include women whose purpose did not stop at serving this film-- because this is a gorgeous human story and not just a star vehicle. Likewise some of the camera department aesthetic choices seemed inconsistent and a bit insulting to the sensational aerial cinematography and superb editing. Truly worth a good watch, I enjoyed Lion on many levels. You're in for a treat!