In a sentenceA television quiz with the resting pulse of a police chase
Jamal grows up amid poverty in Mumbai, with little reason to expect wealth or security. A television quiz offers the possibility of both, while he searches for a lost love. Dev Patel and Freida Pinto play the older Jamal and Latika, with Madhur Mittal as the older Salim and Anil Kapoor as Prem. The story moves between childhood hardship and the pressures of the game show, bringing romance into a life shaped by violence and inequality. Danny Boyle directs, from Simon Beaufoy’s adaptation of a novel by Vikas Swarup.
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Danny Boyle’s Mumbai romance is quick, warm and hard to resist, even when its coincidences become conspicuous. Dev Patel gives it a human centre, though the rush from poverty to pleasure can leave us uneasy.
Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is a good romance with enough drive to keep its more convenient plotting from becoming a constant irritation. We recommend it for its warmth and pace, with some reservations about the way it handles suffering. The television quiz supplies suspense, while Jamal’s search for lost love gives the questions an importance beyond money. Boyle commits to both with such confidence that there is little opportunity to ask whether they fit quite as neatly as Simon Beaufoy’s screenplay insists.
Dev Patel helps enormously as the older Jamal. His performance is direct and relatively unshowy, giving us someone to care about while the film is busy finding another way to quicken the pulse. The younger performers, including Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Tanay Chheda as Jamal at different ages, make the childhood passages feel less calculated than the larger story. They bring an alertness to the hardship that stops these scenes becoming merely an explanation for the adult.
Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography makes Mumbai difficult to take our eyes off: strong colours, oblique angles and a camera keen to get close to the street. There is pleasure in that proximity, and enough visual information to make a second look worthwhile. Mark Digby’s production design keeps the quiz-show setting distinct from the streets, a useful clarity amid the rapid changes of scene. The city feels busy with lives beyond Jamal’s, which matters when his own story starts to seem too carefully arranged.
Chris Dickens’s editing is essential to the attraction and to the discomfort. He maintains a brisk pace without making the story difficult to follow, while A.R. Rahman’s music gives the movement an insistent beat. We were uneasy at how quickly scenes of poverty and violence became part of the same excitement as the quiz. The cutting and music keep urging us forwards before the distress has had time to settle. That does not cancel the pleasure, but it makes Boyle’s eagerness to entertain feel careless in places.
Beaufoy’s screenplay, adapted from a novel by Vikas Swarup, also asks a great deal of coincidence. Romantic fables can survive a few unlikely events, but here the conveniences sometimes make the characters’ choices feel secondary. Freida Pinto’s older Latika is appealing, but we wanted more room for her to exist beyond the importance she holds for Jamal. The romance depends heavily on accepting that importance, and Patel does more to persuade us of it than the writing does.
Boyle is on firmer ground when he trusts the simple demands of a romantic melodrama. He takes love and hope seriously, and Patel makes that earnestness easier to accept than it might have been with a more knowing lead. At 121 minutes, the film feels shorter, though a little less haste might have made the people fuller. Choose it for an evening of romance and suspense, provided a conspicuously helpful coincidence does not send you reaching for the remote.
Most critics greet Slumdog Millionaire warmly, with praise clustering around Danny Boyle’s energetic direction and the vivid depiction of Mumbai. Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography receives particular attention, while the editing and music also earn credit for keeping the story moving. The prevailing view is that the film makes its familiar rags-to-riches story involving through warmth, suspense and a wholehearted belief in romance, even when its contrivances are easy to spot.
The reservations concern predictability, depth and the treatment of hardship, with responses ranging from enthusiastic approval to marked discomfort. The New Yorker finds the story formulaic but enjoys its verve, while The Hollywood Reporter considers it entertaining yet thin in conception and execution. The Independent offers the sharpest dissent: it admires the energy and the city portrait but finds the combination of graphic poverty, violence and wish-fulfilment entertainment queasy rather than uplifting.
The critic hails it as Danny Boyle's finest since Trainspotting, celebrating its thrillingly upbeat picaresque energy, colourful Mumbai portrait and infectious vitality despite some familiar contrivances.
Read the full review →The review calls the film a triumph that recaptures the energy of Trainspotting, praising its Dickensian epic scope, vibrant visuals and ultimately uplifting story set against Mumbai's harsh realities.
Read the full review →The hyper-energetic rags-to-riches tale dazzles and delights, succeeding for the most part; the real star is the city of Mumbai brought to life by Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.
Read the full review →Boyle’s bravura command elevates the melodramatic story into a dazzling crowd-pleaser teeming with the sights, sounds and sensations of modern India; it builds into a moving tale of hope and the inspirational power of love.
Read the full review →The critic praises Boyle's energetic, colorful direction that turns a tale of hardship into an upbeat, warm fairytale full of humanity, highlighting the vivid depiction of India by Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.
Read the full review →Lane finds the film a formulaic but energetic crowd-pleaser whose unembarrassed energy brings the obvious to the boil, with no surprises but plenty of verve. He singles out the way the filmmakers get their lenses dirty on Mumbai's streets and the closing Bollywood dance number for note.
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City of GodFor another fast, troubling account of young lives shaped by urban violence.
The LunchboxAnother Mumbai romance, with room for hesitation and ordinary disappointment.
The Umbrellas of CherbourgColour and music carry a romance that takes separation seriously.
Tsotsi · not reviewed yetA harder look at poverty, violence and the possibility of tenderness.
Cinema ParadisoFor childhood memories and sentiment delivered without much fear of embarrassment.
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