The Sickness

Rating: 4/10 (13 March 2009)

It feels as if I have been hit with a terrible, incurable disease. Like the elephant man, who's abnormalities awakens fear and anger in the crowd. How can something be like this? It's not supposed to be like this.. but.. so things turned out.. 8 Oscars can not convince me.. - I laughed my way through Slumdog Millionaire. All my high hopes and expectations  which dramatically had increased the last couple of months - seemed to drop on the floor simultaneously with the movie's unbearable plot (or lack of plot..). It was as if my soul and heart got torn out of my body, leaving a dry, cynical scalp of skin and a hard, mean laughter. The sickness.
As a big fan of Milk, I expected a true masterpiece from the hands of Danny Boyle  something amazing it had to be, if it could win over Milk. But, oh, Danny Boy, how could you go so wrong You can't cover an empty, meaningless, predictable plot with beautiful pictures, cute Indian children with glittering eyes and heart throbbing music. The flat characters, the wannabe social realism-coverage and the corny love story WILL shine through.
In advance, I knew that I didn't have to use my brain for this movie, it was okay, I was so ready for this hopeful, happy-go-lucky, beautiful masterpiece. But it bullied happy movies! It made a joke of its genre! It's the most embarrassing stunt in film history I'd ever seen. Even the hideous, awful Danielle Steele-movie I saw a week before, had more depth and realness in it. The slum of Mumbai seemed so joyful and colorful; I thought "yay, this slum I have to visit, they seem so happy", and wow, they sure learn English much faster that any other western country does. There sure is a lot of stereotypes in Mumbai you're born as one character (Salim was a gangsterkid, too obvious that he would turn out deceiving and cruel) and it doesn't really seem to change.
Through the years I've seen many Bollywood-features and enjoyed their charm and humour: their self-realization of their genre. Clichés in row. But they can bear it, because they are TRUE to their theme: they don't pretend to visualize the hard life in the slum, they don't give a false depth to a character. They admit that they are predictable. But Slumdog Millionaire what would it tell us? That even if you had a rough childhood under poor, miserable circumstances, you can turn out millionaire? I really don't get it. And I almost threw up during the last scene. "Kiss me"  and then dance the Bollywood dance! Never have I seen anything this embarrassing. I held my hands over my eyes. I couldn't bear it.
After the movie, I missed the last train, and that just made me more angry and miserable. And sick. What is wrong with me, since I feel this way? How can such a horrible film receive this great acknowledgment from high profiled film critiques. It's one of our time's biggest mysteries.