Beautiful, gritty, hopeful and exhausting

Rating: 9/10 (29 September 2014)

Visually stunning, moving, gritty, violent and hopeful. Not sure if it was worthy of all the awards it received but a movie I'm very glad I saw. I liked the way Jamal's (Dev Patel) story was told, clever storytelling there, following a Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums and became a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers.
If I'm honest I didn't really "enjoy" watching this, I found it exhausting even though it's a very good movie. It just gives such an unflinching look at poverty and exploited children that even with the beautiful love story and closing dance sequence I still came away depressed. I usually love these types of movies too but Slumdog hit me on a base level that really affected me. For that reason alone I have to give it a high rating 7/19/14