today we are talking about slumdog millionaire...it is a movie based on the book "Q & A" by vikas swarup...i have read the book and we will talk about that a little while later...this movie won tons of awards seemingly out of nowhere...its success is pretty unique because it is a low budget foreign film...granted, it is a british film and had a budget of $15 million, but when compared to the budget of the watchmen (&150 million) it looks like a drop in the bucket. To date it has grossed somewhere around 328 million worldwide, not a bad return on the investment....if only my 401(k) could give me something like that....
let's check out the trailer and we can move on from there...
slumdog millionare is about a guy who is from the slums of Mumbai and somehow gets on the indian version of who wants to be a millionaire...(pay close attention to how they say millionaire...classic). he does really really well and nobody can figure out how a "slumdog" can know the answers to all these questions...the show's host thinks he has to be cheating so he brings in the police...and the rest of the movie explains how he knows the answer to each question...its pretty cool how it uses scenes from each part of his life to explain his knowledge...from a little boy with his mother, to forced servitude, to scheming with his brother as adolescents, and so on...
he meets a girl along the way and he is hooked...he spends his whole life trying to get with her and the story unfolds from there....
i think the actors did a great job...they have done work before but nothing anywhere close to this scale...the main character jamal(in his adult form) is played by anoop desai, also made famous in this seasons american idol...see below for picture...
the main female character ,Latika, was played by Freida Pinto, who is from Mumbai...
I thought they worked well together and i think they are dating now...good work dev!
i think that everyone should go see it and decide for themselves if they like it...i have heard that people love it and people hate it...there have been tons of controversies surrounding it about the welfare of child-actors, misrepresenting indian culture and Hindus, etc. while it may not perfectly portray the slum culture in india i think it gives us a glimpse into that lifestyle...of course we will never fully understand it but its nice to be exposed to it and know it is a reality for tons of people...
for me this movie is so enjoyable because the main character is so likable...you want to see him make it, see him succeed. so many characters in media today are unlikeable, think bella from twilight, and the director did a good job of keeping him a good guy. people want to see the good guy win sometimes. Even though we have different circumstances, we all can relate to the story...thinking about how our life experiences have made us who we are is a cool exercise. what questions the host would ask you for you to be successful in Jamal's shoes?
Does he win the money? you will have to watch and see, but really in the end, that's not what is important...
as far as the book goes, it is pretty different...i actually think the movie is better than the book and that rarely happens...first of all, salim in not jamal's brother, just his friend and i think that makes a huge difference...also, in the book is abandoned my his mother, quite different from the movie....and for me the biggest difference is Latika, the main girl character. In the movie she is his close childhood friend...in the book she is a prostitute he meets in a brothel at age 17....big, big difference...so i think the movie did a better job with the storyline and im not sure it would have been as successful if it was true to the book...but go buy it and read it for yourself...
if you have seen the movie let me know what you think...and if not you should go see it right now and let me know what you think!
