Dickens for the 21st century

Rating: 8/10 (13 March 2009)

Jamal Malik, a young man from Bombay, is one question away from winning 20 million rupees in the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". The question is posed: how did he do it? We are presented with four answers, A) He cheated, B) He's lucky, C) He's a genius, D) It is written. The film opens with Jamal being roughly interrogated by the police, who believe that the true answer to that question is A). Jamal works as a tea boy at a call centre and lives in the city's slums, and the police refuse to believe that a mere "slumdog" could have the vast general knowledge needed to answer so many questions.
The film then goes on to show just how Jamal knew the answers to so many questions. The gameshow itself is used as the framework of the film, with a series of flashbacks showing us key events in his childhood, many of which have some connection with question in the show. For example, one question relates to the famous Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan, whose autograph Jamal obtained as a boy. Another question, about a Hindu god, recalls communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, in which his mother was killed.
Although the film is set in India, and most of the cast are Indian, it is officially a British movie with a British director, although it is very different from most previous British films about India (such as "North-West Frontier", "Gandhi" and "A Passage to India"), most of which are period pieces set in the days of the Raj. When I reviewed "The Kite Runner", another film with an Asian setting, last year, I described it as a triumphant success that breaks every rule in the Hollywood book. The same description could apply with equal, if not greater, force to "Slumdog Millionaire". It is setting will be unfamiliar to most American or European viewers. Much of the dialogue is in a foreign language (Hindi). There are no major, or even minor, Hollywood names among the cast, nearly all of whom are Indian and some of whom (including the female lead Freida Pinto) are not professional actors. (Some of the children who appear are slum dwellers in real life). And yet it won eight Oscars, including "Best Picture" and "Best Director" for Danny Boyle. I cannot think of another "Best Picture" winner which has won in spite of so many potential disadvantages; "Gandhi" was another British film about India, but it had the advantages of being about a well-known historical figure and of featuring several well-known actors, both American and British.
Why, then, has the film succeeded so brilliantly? I think that part of the answer lies in the way it draws upon what may be described as literary archetypes. It reminded me strongly of the works of Dickens. (And not only me; the critic Ann Hornaday called it "Charles Dickens for the 21st century.") It has similar ingredients to those found in many of his novels- a combination of social realism with humour, sentimentality and a rags-to-riches story with a happy ending for the virtuous hero and his beautiful girlfriend, although not necessarily for all the other characters. "Oliver Twist" seems to have been a particular influence. Like Oliver, Jamal is an orphan who grows up in poverty after the death of his mother. Like Oliver, he falls in with criminals; in Jamal's case the Fagin-figure is a gangster named Maman who intends to use him as a beggar (after blinding him to increase his earning potential). And like Oliver, Jamal is able to escape from poverty through a twist of fate. (Dickens' choice of his hero's surname has clear symbolic significance). As in the novel virtue is rewarded and vice punished; in the film vice is personified not only by Maman and his fellow gangsters but also by Jamal's brother Salim, who goes to the bad and becomes a gangster himself.
Other factors which contribute to the film's success include Simon Beaufoy's screenplay and Boyle's fast-paced direction which creates a sense of vibrancy and excitement, especially in action scenes like the one where Jamal and Salim escape from Maman by climbing on top of a train. Some, including critic Mick LaSalle, have criticised the film's non-linear narrative structure, which relies heavily on flashbacks, but I never had any difficulty following the action and, indeed, found this the most logical way of presenting the action. Had Boyle and Beaufoy told the story in a strictly linear fashion, with the gameshow and Jamal's arrest and interrogation being reserved until the end, this would have deprived the story of much of its drama and immediacy.
Another criticism which has been made is that the film is too sunny and optimistic; one Indian critic wrote that "Most people in the slums never achieve a fairy-tale ending." Well, that is no doubt true, but then most poor orphans in nineteenth-century London never managed to escape from poverty, as Oliver Twist did, by turning out to be the long-lost son of a wealthy family. "Slumdog Millionaire" was never meant to be a documentary but a romantic melodrama, a genre of film which has always enjoyed a certain licence to depart from strict verisimilitude. And a very enjoyable one it is too. 8/10