A modern fairy tale

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2009)

I'd heard plenty of good reviews of this film before watching it and obviously knew it had raked in the Oscars but that often isn't a great indicator of a great film, in this case however I think it deserved all of the critical acclaim.
Dev Patel plays Jamal Malik, a young man who grew up in the slums of Bombay and is one question away from winning the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". It seems to those running the show, and to the police that he must have cheated after all it isn't very likely that an uneducated boy from the slums could get further than anybody else had done in the programme. What follows is a series of fantastical episodes each showing how an event in his life had taught him the answers to the questions.
Throughout most of the escapades Jamal is accompanied by his brother Salim who later gets involved with gangsters in the now renamed Mumbai. They are also joined by a young slum-girl called Latika who is loved by Jamal; each time they get separated he does all he can to find her again, even after several years of separation.
The acting is pretty good, especially from the three young children in the earliest flashbacks who were thoroughly enchanting. While it is sold as a feel-good film there is an awful lot feel-bad before things turn out as they do, of course this makes the feel-good feel all the better. I really enjoyed this film and would certainly recommend it to any adult wanting to see something different.