Terrible, Don't see this film, you have better things to do with your time.

Rating: 2/10 (18 December 2008)

A film about a young boy in India who implausibly makes it all the way to the final round of India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". It's not that he is a genius, it just so happens that the 20 questions they ask him coincide with the 20 most important instances of his young life! The answers are so ingrained in him, that they are a part of his very being! From the religion that caused his mothers death to the song that almost made him blind, every question is a chance for us to revisit his life story and reveal the "heart wrenching" past that made this boy who he is. Oh, and did I mention that the questions also just happen to be in chronological order, so that we get his life story all neatly packed up in a coherent time line that builds to the end of the film? What genius writing this is...
Don't ever see this movie, ever. Its not worth your time, not even for the ridiculously out of place dance sequence at the end of the film. The whole thing stinks of sub par writing and less than original film-making. The one semi-clever moment was the transition between young and older actors (which occurred when they fell off a train and were rolling in the dirt, with the camera rolling with them (Straight on close up, ala Requiem for a Dream (The bridge from summer to fall) or the old MTV show "Fear") they then emerge from the dust as their older selves. Clever. Sorta. At least I thought they handled it well. But the whole film is really a series of poorly connected events that are meant to give rise to this epic love story, which is highly implausible due to the fact that the boy and girl involved were around 7 years old when they first met, but I guess it could happen. Really though, and this maybe due to the venue that I saw the film in, and the fact that I've been reading the "Stuff White People Like" by the guy at "http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/" (good stuff), the whole film feels like a chance for American and White audiences to feel cultured and understanding of those living in developing countries. Just look at the mise-en-scène of this boys past, which is filled with so much filth, dirt, and debris (at one point he even jumps into a vat of human feces so he can get an autograph of his favorite actor), that one couldn't help but root for him to succeed and conquer his troubled past, get the money, get the girl, and dance at the train station.
The film is filled with hip and edgy montages (including a sequence set to that damned MIA song, you know the one, with the sound effects and stuff) that somehow allow the protagonists to get by with their miserable settings. In fact, these sequences are so bouncy and happy that they almost manage to portray their settings in a positive light. I suppose that its good to look for the positive, but how about a bit of realism for a change, a bit of truth of the cinema that shows the good and the bad. Because no matter how cool the music makes it look, fighting everyday for food and having to steal, and fight, and kill for your meals is not an existence to be envied. Did I mention that each setting that they exist in has a convenient mob of kids that are willing to make friends and strike a living together? It's just as great as Peter Pan and the lost Boy's out there! Who wouldn't want to join in on the fun? The energy of the film is terribly unbalanced, and I wonder if the book that it is based on "Q&A" is so one-sided in portraying the hardships of these kids.
The worst part, if there even is one moment that warrants being put on top, was the fact that the films final climactic tension, the last bit of drama before we are released to the happy ending, was nothing more than the same tension one finds on an episode of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire": Will he answer the question correctly? DOES HE KNOW THE ANSWER? OH MY GOD! I had almost hoped that the film would redeem its self with some crazy twist that requires the audience to revisit every sequence in the film to look for the hidden truth (there were some interrogation scenes that strongly reminded me of those from the "The Usual Suspects"), but no. Instead, our final moments of the film are to be left up to the same devices as a TV game show. Pathetic. Just Pathetic.
Top it off with one terribly, terribly, corny (and cliché) final scene where the protagonist and the girl are reunited (He says: "It was destiny" She says: "Kiss Me") and you have your self the stuff to make soccer moms and teenage girls swoon. And this is supposed to be independent cinema? Looks and smells like Hollywood to me...
Bottom line: 2/10 Don't see it, don't rent it, don't even watch it on TV. Unless you liked Twilight, then maybe you might find this film enjoyable. Otherwise, beware.