Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle

I saw Slumdog Millionaire on the rec­om­men­da­tion of a good friend — the best adver­tis­ing there is — and she wasn’t wrong. I was thrilled by the film, for a host of rea­sons. It’s ulti­mately a fairy tale, nearly as grim as Grimm’s, although the clos­ing sequence will leave a boost in your heart for some time to come. But then I heard sto­ries that peo­ple in India protested against the movie, and I began to won­der if this was another instance where we well-off North Americans fall in love with an inac­cu­rate depic­tion of a less-privileged group, smugly declar­ing our­selves informed and sym­pa­thetic. So I sought the opin­ion of another friend, born in the United States but well trav­elled in India and well versed in the cul­ture. He sent this reply: “I love how it turned the tra­di­tional Bollywood scheme on its head: instead of a mar­riage story about a rich fam­ily, Danny Boyle [direc­tor of the film] took on the often untold story of a slum­dog and showed what is going on in India. The trickle-down effect leaves every­one hun­gry. India has tasted wealth and wants more. The under­priv­i­leged feel like they are miss­ing the party and so the expan­sion of the drug trade, mob activ­ity and sex exploita­tion are often an invite to the party. The zip­pies (Thomas Friedman’s term for the young, ener­getic Indian gen­er­a­tion that have money) also are forced into a dilemma: to embrace Western cul­ture, to keep to their own cul­ture or to attempt a hybrid. The sound­track matched the hybrid approach with songs by M.I.A., who blends Western beats with some Indian themes, and the music of A.R. Rahman. After see­ing Slumdog, I won­der if I am miss­ing out on the party here in the U.S., as our edu­ca­tion sys­tem, econ­omy and hous­ing go to shit. I won­der if the real oppor­tu­ni­ties are in India — a place my par­ents iron­i­cally left long ago for bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties in Detroit.” If you can’t leave your cyn­i­cism at home, avoid this film. Otherwise move through it, at a pace set as much by the actors as the cin­e­matog­ra­pher and direc­tor, and wait for the tran­scen­dent clos­ing sequence where Hollywood meets Bollywood.