Only good if you don't think about it.

Rating: 3/10 (31 March 2009)

I accept that I saw this film post-hype. It was never going to be the Citizen Kane that people seem to think it is. But cripes, it was fluff! Not only fluff, but cold fluff: while something like Mamma Mia can draw you in with its silliness and generous humour, I felt nothing but boredom at Dev Patel's constant grump. I didn't want him to get the girl.
And, for all the talk about it being a 'love story against all the odds', the odds are so disparate as to be totally random! If you're going to write a fable, at least make your symbols coherent: is he fighting against discrimination because of his background? Is he fighting against people who use him? Or is he just fighting against his brother, who for some unknown reason is a really bad apple? (on that last point, this really annoyed me: i really don't buy his brother! If we agree its a moral fable, then what on earth does he represent?) Another massive problem with the film is the total lack of character development. So Dev Patel wants this girl... er, OK, why is this? It just seems to be a given. Can you imagine them having a happy life after the film? Can you imagine any of the characters doing ANYTHING outside the bubble of this plot? Can you say anything meaningful about the characters in the film that don't revolve around plot necessitudes? No? Well, maybe that's because these characters are about as undeveloped as your average goldfish.
Basically, I accept that people will say that Slumdog isn't a heavyweight film; its a bit of romantic nonsense in an economic climate when we all need cheering up. OK then: watch Forrest Gump or Mamma Mia. Because they're far more warm and generous than this anti-social, individualistic film. The icing on the cake came at the climax of the film, when all the people of Mumbai watch Dev Patel win the show. Where did this community theme come from in a film which is ostensibly about this one kid fighting everyone else? Perhaps Boyle thought the only way to sell a film about India was to make it with lots of anonymous happy smiling people doing a dance. How very dated.