A gripping visual and visceral ride with its heart in the right place!

Rating: 9/10 (16 February 2017)

What could I say? I was utterly blown away by how good this movie was.
From the opening scene, the score and cinematography was just outstanding, bringing us into Khandwa with the characters. The young actor Sunny Pawar did a phenomenal job by doing a realistic portrayal of the character. The editing in the movie is a little too fast for my taste but I soon got used to it, although I did think several shots in the movie could've been cut. But this director definitely had a firm hand on the screenplay. I was never bored for a second as the movie was so gripping. The sound design throughout the film, editing, mixing, whatever it is so immersive and fully utilizes the soundscape, including moments of silence and moments of much music.
Where the movie does dwindle is in the second half of the film, which is still really good and better than most movies, but it was a notch down as it couldn't really find a focus for some time. There isn't much conflict happening that we could care about as deeply as what happened in the 1st half. We just want this man get home to his place. But once that starts, it gets gripping again. But the way he finds it on his laptop when he has finally given up felt quite cliché. The Mentosh character wasn't developed enough for us to know what exactly is going on, which might be enough but introducing such an integral character to the main character's life and leaving him just like that feels unfinished. The movie was slows down, getting a little underwhelming.
But the last scenes become a saving grace, making us both cry and feel happy at the same time. The acting of Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman are fantastic. Nicole Kidman is so subtle in her portrayal and I just her as the character. That's true acting. Dev Patel really portrays the shitty feeling that people feel when there's a longing and never- ending grief in them. This is a long way from Slumdog Millionaire, where he was more of a kid. But in this film, he's intense. His eyes say a lot. When he's angry in the dinner table scene, you truly feel that intensity, because it's done so realistically.
Rooney Mara might not have much of a role but for what she was given, she did absolutely brilliantly, which isn't surprising as to how great of an actress she is as seen in Social Network, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2011. The dream sequences that appear towards the second half don't feel forced as it's the visual incarnation of Saroo's longing for his real family.
Some may argue the movie portrays India in a negative light but this movie shows a poor village boy from Khandwa getting lost in a city, in the 1980s, and not even knowing the language. I don't know how else this would turn out. Plus it's based on a true story so whether you like it or not, it happened.
Moreover, this movie doesn't go to cheap tricks to make us feel sad. It develops the characters before we have to feel something for them. It does things visually more than through dialogue, especially in the first half. You could turn off the sound and subtitles and still understand the film. That's visual storytelling, which is what films are meant to be. Or else we could just be watching plays, or radio dramas, or even read a novel, with the same or better effect. Now here is someone who understands the medium of film and makes the best use of it, although maybe there's too many cuts and shots, reliance on score, which could all just get better with age. So I have high hopes for this director.
This won't win Best Picture but damn is it a good film. I didn't think a movie could be as close to the visual poetry and masterpiece of a film like Moonlight in 2016 but I was wrong. This might be just as good as that.
Personally, I was on the verge of tears for most of the movie, after he gets on the train. And whenever that theme song, which is similar to Moonlight Sonata but still super effective, just makes me want to cry. The cinema hall was rather empty for such a good film. I think more people should go out to see this. If you don't like dramas that much, you probably won't like this but if you like a really emotional ride and don't mind crying while watching a movie, this is for you.