Average enough, but a bit mis-sold as a "feel good" film

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2009)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Slumdog Millionaire is not a conventional 'rags to riches' film. That is, to say, it's not a rags to riches story told in a conventional way. It doesn't play out like the sort of heart warming family tale that you could sit down and enjoy your Sunday roast with that the genre is famous for following the convention of. Indeed, it feels a tad mis-sold with the front cover loudly proclaiming it 'a feel good film.' Instead, it unflinchingly takes us feet first into the cold and unfeeling world of the poverty and desperation of the slums of India that are as awful as those in, say, Jamaica. It's strange as India does statistically have a stronger economy than the UK, not to mention being much bigger than us, yet it's still known as 'a poor country.' And Indians do have a reputation as quite affable, gentle people. Yet SM shows us some of the more unsavoury ones who are truly rotten eggs. Which brings us onto another downbeat aspect of the film, in the shape of a truly unsettling scene involving a child being blinded so more pity will be taken on him as a beggar. It takes a nasty jolt like this to wake us up to the true human cost going on behind the poorness and despair, and the parasitic exploitation that festers behind it.
Indeed, The News of the World ran the story of how the child stars were made to return to their lives of poverty after the film enjoyed Oscar night and how the father of one of them was even driven to sell them so she could have a better life. There is poverty in the UK, but I can't imagine a situation where a child would be sold out of poverty. All in all, the film serves as a depressing eye opener to the unseen world of India and you come away with less of an impression of having seen a 'feel good' film and indeed actually having seen quite a downbeat and disturbing one. That's not to say it doesn't have it's more positive moments or that it's any less involving, just you go in for one thing and come out with something a bit different. And that never works for me. ***