It is gratifying that in an age of mediocre and overly-expensive movies we can find this gem

Rating: 8/10 (6 August 2017)

Finally, a movie to like. Really like. This film is a tearjerker, especially for those of us who had unusual childhoods.
I thought at first I was watching a foreign film, for nearly half the movie is spoken in Hindi. I tried repeatedly to download non- existent subtitles.
Clearly, I thought, the American viewing public, hopelessly self- absorbed in American culture with scant knowledge of cultures in other nations (ask yourself, how many Americans speak a foreign language? Have you seen "American Sniper"?) would not stand for a movie in a foreign language with no subtitles.
But I was wrong. The Hindi language deepens the viewers' involvement, loses nothing in comprehension, and authenticates the transition from India to Australia, when English begins to be spoken.
Although the plot is well known, as is the ending, the story is so well told and so well acted, especially by the wide-eyed 5-year old boy, that this movie never bores.
Th first half, admittedly, is the more more interesting as it deals with India, through a child's eye, much the same as the "Slumdog Millionaire" was fascinating. But in the second half Nicole Kidman does such a fine acting job, without her long reddish-blonde hair and slinky dresses I had difficulty recognizing her at first.
I gave the movie an 8 instead of 10 because there is no expressed explanation why the little boy runs away from the Indian couple who shelter him, nor why from the hundreds of homeless children in the orphanage (and thousands in India) he is one of few "brown-skinned children" selected to go the Australia.
This movie is a BIG money maker. It is indeed gratifying, in an age of overly expensive but mediocre and often infantile, formula- repetitive, cartoon-like and CGI-overloaded movies, we can find and watch this gem.
Let's hope that there will be many more made like this.