Jai Ho!

Rating: 8/10 (16 February 2010)

Slumdog Millionaire is the schmaltz that Hollywood is known for. But credit Danny Boyle, characteristic visual artist he is, for delivering an earnest crowd-pleasing melodrama that unabashedly embraces its characters' oh-so heartfelt triumphs against adversities and cynicism, and hits the right notes in the process. Ditching complicated narratives that usually take the better of his films' characters, Boyle's film (co-directed by Loveleen Tandan) entrenches itself in its glorification of love, friendship, and destiny (or perhaps karma), composing them and their cacophonous Indian backdrop in cross-processed film colors, slanted camera angles, and fiercely rapid editing. Brimming with joy and sentimentality, Simon Beaufoyt's script (from Vikas Swarup's bestselling book Q&A) narrates through a fractured timeline the saga of Jamal (Dev Patel), an 18-year old Indian boy who despite having raised in the slums and having no formal education, manages to get to the final round of the local edition of the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Such feat catches the attention of local police who, believing he is cheating, interrogate, torture, and mock him; and to whom he calmly explains every momentous detail in his life - diving in a pile of poo to have an autographed picture of his favorite Bollywood actor, watching his mom die in the hands of anti-Muslim rioters, his misadventures with older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) etc -- that ties into his knowledge of the questions' answers, as well as why he joined the contest in the first place -- to meet the girl he loved since childhood: Latika (Frieda Pinto). Slumdog Millionaire is absolutely predicated to the notion that the staunch devotion one has to achieving something and the unwavering love for someone is ultimately rewarded by destiny -- or any Higher Being for that matter -- a concept not lost on Boyle, who relentlessly surrounds his characters with the festive environment of their country as they circuitously find their ways into reconnecting with each other, capped by the Bollywood-style musical number in the end. It's an unabashedly romantic fairytale, and Boyle's eye for beautiful images and proficiency for crisp storytelling enhance a tale where well-meaninged people are rightfully rewarded in beautifully mysterious ways.