Emotional Tear-Jerker

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2017)

Make sure you bring a box of Kleenex to this one! You will shed heartfelt tears or spend an inordinate amount of energy trying to hold them off. But, while I truly enjoyed the movie, I don't think the movie was structured as well as it could have been. Basically, the first half of the film follows a young Indian boy lost in a strange city and then transitions to Australia 20 years later where the boy was raised by an adopted family. Instead, I would have preferred starting with Dev Patel (the lead character as an adult), seeing him struggle with his identity and gradually show us through multiple flashbacks his experiences as a lost child in India. His growing awakening and recollections about his past would have been a journey both character and audience were making together and would have given the film more heft. Still, this was an uplifting and, at times, bittersweet movie held together by charming leads.