I just could not resist my temptation to watch Slumdog Millionaire owing to its amazing storyline and the fact that the movie has received not one, or two, but 10 Oscar nominations. While, composer A R Rahman accounts for three of them, veteran lyricist Gulzar is also a co-nominee. Director, Danny Boyle has also got an Oscar nomination. India’s arrival at the mecca of film awards is nothing short of spectacular dream. I took my whole family to watch this movie. To my surprise, it has been released with more than 200 prints (in both Hindi and English).
The film has been on a roll having won nearly 64 awards (the film has won accolades from Golden Globe for best film, direction, screenplay and music score), 11 Bafta nominations and 10 Oscar nominations. Owing to this, the film has grossed 44 million US dollars in its pre-Oscar run and is expected to cross $50 million this week itself.
Adapted from Vikas Swarup’s Booker Prize winning novel ,“Q & A” , Slumdog Millionaire is a film about Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel, also played by Tanay Chheda and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar), young man from the slums of Mumbai, who appears on a game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?), hosted by Prem Kumar (noted Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor). Jamal makes it to the the final question, but the police starts accusing him of cheating. Police inspector (Irrfan Khan) interrogates and tortures Jamal Malik, who then begins to offer an explanation of how he knew the answers. He conveys his explanation as a series of flashbacks documenting the particulars of his childhood, and of Latika (played by Frieda Pinto, bollywood’s fabulous fresh face), the girl he loved and lost.
In spite of receiving accolades from the film fraternity, the movie is being protested by several dozen Mumbai slum residents, calling the film’s title insulting. Not only this, Anil Kapoor and A R Rahman have also been sued in a Patna court for allegedly calling slum dwellers’ names in Slumdog Millionaire. One Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, general secretary of Slum Dwellers’ Joint Action Committee, on Tuesday filed a complaint case in the court of chief judicial magistrate Raghavendra Kumar Singh, charging the duo with defaming slum dwellers by calling them names.
Amidst all the praise and rejection, the entire cast of the film is just waiting with their fingers crossed for the upcoming Oscar awards.
My Star rating:***1/2
Cast: Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto
Producer: Christian Colson
Director: Danny Boyle
Music Director: A.R.Rahman
Screenplay Writer: Simon Beaufoy
