Garth Davis makes a lost child’s fear painfully immediate in Lion. His patient work with performers and places is worth following, though he can let dialogue explain feelings the images have already made clear.
Fi1m perspective
In Lion (2016), a city becomes frightening because nobody in it knows who a lost child is. Davis makes the need for home clear through that simple, awful situation, well before the screenplay starts discussing it. We were frightened for the boy because being unrecognised by everyone around him leaves him so vulnerable. Sunny Pawar’s performance gives Davis something more persuasive than an explanation, and the director is wise enough to let the child’s fear hold our attention.
That was his feature debut, following television work that included co-directing four episodes of Top of the Lake (2013) with Jane Campion. Mary Magdalene (2018) took him into biblical drama, while Foe (2023) explored marriage and identity through science fiction and gave him a co-writing credit. Those are substantial changes of subject, but the reason we would follow him into unfamiliar territory is still the care he shows the performers in Lion.
Davis spends time in locations before shooting, looking closely at their light and physical details. His longstanding collaboration with cinematographer Greig Fraser gives Lion fluid camerawork guided by the character’s perspective, keeping the surroundings relevant to the child’s experience. With actors, Davis can use private conversations, music or images rather than prescribing how a scene should be played. Pawar’s performance feels direct and unforced, which matters in a film that asks us to spend so much time with a child in distress.
The adult section is less assured. Luke Davies’s screenplay discusses home more explicitly, and Davis lets the same distress return in scenes that do not differ enough to keep the search absorbing. Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman keep the family troubles worth caring about, but good performances cannot quite disguise the repetition. We would like Davis to trust the strength of his earlier scenes and move on sooner; he has already made the loss of home matter. Another family drama would be welcome, preferably with less explaining.
Biography
Garth Davis is an Australian film, television and advertising director. He studied graphic design at Swinburne University and began his career directing commercials.
Davis co-directed episodes of the series Top of the Lake (2013) with Jane Campion. His feature directorial debut was Lion (2016). He went on to direct Mary Magdalene (2018) and Foe (2023), the latter of which he also wrote and produced. He directed four episodes of the series East of Eden (2026) and served as an executive producer.
He received an Emmy Award nomination for direction on Top of the Lake and a Directors Guild of America Award for Lion.
