The Boy on the Train

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2017)

I'd be lion if I said I sometimes didn't obsess for years to find something or someone from my past. Though, mine seems a ton more trivial now.
Talk about cultural differences. It might happen in America, but I doubt the outcome would be the same.
This sometimes heartbreaking story tells the true tale of a five-year- old boy getting separated by his older brother in India. He is virtually trapped on a train car for days and the people who do see him and his cries for help lands on deaf ears. Once finally released from the cab, he's lost, taken and eventually sold (I guess) to an Australian couple. So off he's whisked to Australia, grows up and finally hit with the overwhelming need to find his first homeand mum.
His two year obsession nearly destroys his adult life, relationships and adopted mother. This is a story of a lost boy grown up and attempting to retrace his steps from shaky memories now 25 years later and from when he was only five.
Heck, I remember some of when I was five years old, and though I didn't have such a tragedy occur, I am uncertain if I could recall enough details to put the pieces back together. I don't even know if I even knew my parent's real names back then. Worse, for this person, he has only his memory to rely on verses any records, people or places to recall.
Again, I doubt this would happen (as badly) in the United States, but according to this film, this happens, ah-hem, 80,000 times a year. Egad! They have issues.
I did truly like this film and had a string of emotions throughout. Started with anger on how poorly strangers and agencies dealt with an obviously lost young child. And, mercifully, he did end up with a loving family, it still was terrible he was all-but snatched away and sold as property. But the emotional journey of him attempting to reconnect with his biological family was when the movie peaked and provided a pleasant hope. Definitely worth seeing.
***
Final thoughts: Unfortunately, I have little, in-person contact with foreigners and I would like to. Coincidentally to me seeing this, I get to spend some time with a friend coming from Peru for the very first time to the States. I get to take him to Vegas, Disneyland, Hollywood and a few other places within driving distance of Phoenix, AZ. Can't wait for him to visit and for me to learn more from someone outside the country in about a week.
Let's just hope he doesn't board a train without me and I have to spend the next 25 years looking for him!