Easy money

So the 2008 Best Picture winner decided to skip the budget theater and go straight to DVD. Luckily for me, I was able to snag a copy quickly through Netflix and can still do a normal review for it.

Slumdog Millionaire is certainly one of the most unlikeliest films to win top honors at the Oscars, but that certainly doesn't make it a bad film. I'm hard pressed to say it was worthy of the award since I haven't seen any of the other nominees yet. However, I can see how a lot of people got caught up in this movie. It has a theme the resonates in our economically troubling times. It's also an uplifting film that is presented in a unique style.

If you've lived under a rock for the past few months, I'll tell you that the film is about a young Indian boy who grew up in the slums of Mumbai. Through a series of events in his life, he winds up on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire with a chance to win the big prize. Before he can answer the final question, he's accused of cheating and we learn how he came to be on the show via flashbacks and he's interrogated.

Let me get out of the way my biggest complaint about the film, which may sound like an odd nitpick. For some reason, director Danny Boyle chose to display the film's subtitles in a rather small font and have it randomly displayed on the screen instead of fixed at the bottom. With my glasses, I have fine eye sight, but I struggled trying to read everything. I was able to get the jist of most of the story, but it would have made things a lot better had I been able to follow along with the dialogue. While this may seem like a small thing, it made it difficult for me to get lost in the story, which is not a good thing.

Though I didn't care for the font, almost everything else from a visual standpoint works. The film provides you with a very close look at the slum lifestyle that so many people in that country must endure in real life. Boyle also has a lot of cinematic flare that prevents the film from ever getting dull. In many ways, it's shot in a way unlike most films, which gives it that something special that you would want in a best picture nominee.

As for the acting, the cast is made up of mostly children so it's hard to really evaluate. None of the performances were bad, nor were any of them amazing (as proven by the fact that the film didn't receive any acting nominations). What I can say is that the actors did enough to have you maintain your interest in the story.

And while the story is engaging, I still felt somewhat detached from it all. That may have to do with the film's central theme of destiny. I hate to use the word crutch, but in a sense destiny is used that way here. It's a plot device that I'm not fond of because there's no appealing end result. You either try to prove that destiny does not exist, which is depressing. Or if you stick with destiny well then the outcome is obvious because you've had your characters say what will happen throughout the film because "it's our destiny!". I suppose depicting that destiny exists is the lesser of two evils, which is what this film opts for. It may not be the most surprising of conclusions, but it should make you feel good nonetheless.

I personally would have liked more scenes to have taken place while Jamal (Dev Patel) was on Millionaire. The game show has worked in real life because of the tremendous drama that is built into it. The film wisely tapped into that by making it a part of the story, but I thought it could have been used more to provide some added drama. The best scene of the film for me is when he uses his phone a friend. I won't go into details on it, but it perfectly captures the drama of the show while also paying off so many of the plot points that had been developed over the course of the movie.

I'm not sure how this movie will be remembered down the line. It's a wonderfully appealing movie, but I think a lot of the connections people have with it are rooted in our present time. I don't know if it has that universal quality to it that will have people looking at it fondly 10 or 20 years from now. I definitely recommend the film though as it's well done and enjoyable to watch. And for most, it's a film unlike many you've probably seen, so it works as a nice change of pace. Too many of the Best Picture winners are either too dark or too cerebral to be appreciated by a wide audience, so it's nice to see a film win that is so accessible and easy to appreciate. Grade: B+