Will make you 'feel good', but lacking in substance

Rating: 6/10 (1 February 2009)

There are good and bad things about this film. First, the good things. It shows aspects of the reality of slum life in Mumbai that are routinely ignored by 'Bollywood'. In this film, we see the shacks people live in, the way they dry their clothes and how they go to the toilet, and there are allusions to prostitution and to the criminal and communal violence that can be a feature of living in the slums. We also see something of the organised nature of begging and the cruelty of those who control the child beggars. The filming is beautiful, the film is entertaining, and we can all leave on a high and feeling good about how it ends, with its underlying message of the power of love and compassion.
However, the key problem with the film is that everything is captured on no more than a superficial level. There are beautiful images in the film of the Dharavi slums and the inhabitants, but they are the kind of images one would expect to see in a guidebook. In other words, these images are taken from the perspective of a tourist, and, like the tourist, the film merely scratches the surface of life in the slum. The superficiality continues in the simplistic nature of the characters and the lack of any real character development. Some of the characters are introduced to simply be one-dimensional 'baddies', such as the gangsters Maman and Javed. The plot itself is contrived, with one question on the game show leading to a 'flashback', another question leading to another 'flashback', and so on. The plot is also implausible in a number of ways. For example, it is never explained how Jamal goes from the slums to a clean-cut looking, English-speaking call centre assistant. Also, the reason for Jamal appearing on the game show is because he apparently wishes to resume contact with Latika, but we are not told how he expects Latika to contact him, given that she is being kept under lock and key by Javed.
Despite these shortcomings, there is no doubt that the film manipulates the viewers' emotions in such a way that they 'feel good' after seeing the film, they feel on a high, and they love the film. However, this is a typical feature of many Bollywood films. This is what these films are designed to do. They are there to act like a drug, like alcohol or like sex to give you a kick and to make you feel good. This is not necessarily a good thing because the kick is not going to last. When I walked out of the cinema and into the supermarket, the comedown from the high I felt after seeing this fairytale left me feeling nothing but depression. Watch Slumdog and get your buzz from it, but be ready for the cold turkey as well. Somehow, I think there should be more substance to cinema than this.