Well worth the hype

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2008)

A young man sits in a chair under bright lights, his face a cypher. He is on the popular Indian game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” and he’s just correctly answered a question worth ten million rupees. As the episode ends - a cliffhanger! - the young man is arrested and taken to police headquarters on charges of cheating in the game. How could a boy from the poorest area of the country do so well on this knowledge show? The tale unfolds under the withering questions by the police inspector. Jamal (Dev Patel) explains how he came to be able to answer the show’s questions by describing his life, from his impoverished beginnings in Mumbai to his involvement with a Fagin-like misanthrope to his stint as an illicit tour guide at the Taj Mahal. Through it all, Jamal’s relationships with the two closest people to him - his brother Salim and their new friend Latika - strongly inform his own decision-making abilities. Jamal’s love for Latika, who we shortly learn is the impetus behind Jamal’s appearing on the game show, and his envy (or fear) of Salim are the crucial cogs in Jamal’s frightening existence.
Director Danny Boyle doesn’t just show us the life and times of a poor Indian boy; if anything, that might make the movie more of a maudlin rags-to-riches story. No, this is a romance story, full of passion and undying love. No matter how many times Latika is separated from Jamal - he always finds her again, his heart pounding whenever she is near. It is for her that Jamal is on this game show, and as we learn, he knows the answer to each question he’s been asked because he remembers a specific event in his life on the run that connects him to that question.
Jamal’s journey from boyhood to early adulthood is fraught with danger; his mother his bludgeoned to death in front of him by an anti-Muslim mob, and the Fagin-like creep who takes the brothers in does horrible things to boys like them, especially if they can’t carry a tune (and thus make money). But no matter what happens or where he lands in life, his thoughts are first and foremost with the beautiful Latika. Jamal believes it is written that they will be reunited, and because he believes it so strongly, we believe it, too.
Hardly a false note is rung in this spellbinding, electrifying movie. Everything feels authentic, not a show staged for the pursuit of Western dollars. (There cast is composed of mostly Indian actors, not ringer Americans with “Indian” accents.) Boyle’s commanding, sure hand tells the dual stories of Jamal’s upbringing and his time on the game show, bringing them both to the same - and powerfully emotional conclusion. Dry eyes are not likely in the final third of this movie.