Great Expectations

Danny Boyle's film about rising from the slums to the brink of wealth has charm to burn.


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Published: Nov 19, 2008

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DOG DAY AFTERNOON: Jamal (Dev Patel, left) tries to hit the jackpot on the Indian Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

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The rare narrative that actually deserves to be called Dickensian, Slumdog Millionaire is a ravenous, sprawling story that starts out running and never slows up for more than an instant. Working from a script by Simon Beaufoy, itself loosely adapted from a novel by Vikas Swarup, Danny Boyle plunges into modern-day India like a tourist on a short visa, zipping from the slums of Mumbai to the Taj Mahal, and taking his young protagonist from indigence to the edge of wealth.

The movie is framed by an institutionalized version of the rags-to-riches story: the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, where Jamal (Dev Patel) is in the hot seat, being grilled by the program's grinning shark of a host (Bollywood star Anil Kapoor). As Jamal grows closer to the jackpot, each question propels him back to some episode in his life, which explains how, much to the jealous host's consternation, an uneducated slum kid knows whose face is on the $100 bill or who invented the revolver.

More than Millionaire, it's the wheel of fortune that defines Jamal's life, which is full of wonders and horrors in equal measure. Jamal, who is played at younger ages by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Tanay Hemant Chheda, narrowly escapes mutilation at the hands of some unsavory characters who poke out children's eyes with a hot spoon in order to make them more lucrative beggars, to name only the most graphic of his many close calls. But, at least in Slumdog Millionaire, the life of a penniless street urchin is fraught with adventure, action and even a dash of romance.

As Jamal grows from a plucky waif to a street-toughened but purehearted young man, his country is changing as well. When he returns after many years away, Dev notes in voiceover, "Bombay had turned into Mumbai." The slum where he grew up is gone, replaced by a gleaming office tower. He gets a job in a call center, where operators take cultural literacy classes so they can talk to people around the world while pretending to live just up the road.

India has changed, of course, although not as much as the movie makes out. The slum where the early scenes are filmed still exists, and it will take more than a change of camera angles to turn it into an industrial park. The movie imagines that an entire country, or at least any one of its inhabitants, might strike it rich, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style. It's the American dream brought to India, courtesy of a couple of Brits.

Danny Boyle is a people-pleaser at heart (even if, as with the maudit Sunshine, he doesn't always succeed), and Slumdog Millionaire has charm to burn. Dev Patel, whose only previous role was as a comic foil on the British series Skins, has an ingratiating presence that could flower into full-fledged stardom, even if his Mumbai accent is apparently not up to snuff. Anthony Dod Mantle, the master of digital cinematography who shot Boyle's 28 days later..., gives the movie a vivid sheen without compromising the texture of its real-life locales. The movie has a musical's bold palette, but the colors are scuffed and rusted, not freshly slapped on.

Although it pays tribute to India's magpie culture, Slumdog Millionaire is a little less than meets they eye. Despite that fact that Boyle used a local co-director, Loveleen Tandan, the movie's sensibility isn't a true hybrid, like Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle. Boyle never slows down enough to soak in the world around his characters, or shifts speeds the way Wong Kar-wai does. It's like taking a scenic drive in a race car.

(s_adams@citypaper.net)

Slumdog Millionaire | Directed by Danny Boyle | A Fox Searchlight release