Who wants to see a 'Slumdog Millionaire'?

By Sarah Sluis

Slumdog Millionaire releases today in NYC/LA, and Fox Searchlight has done an incredible job activating the
blogosphere with the well-deserved buzz over this film.  "Breathless" seems to be Slumdog's collective adjective, used variably to describe the editing, the story and pacing, and the cinematography.

The premise has a cheesy feel to it that requires reassurance of its quality: a boy on the Indian version of the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," suspected of cheating, must tell police investigators stories of his life experiences.  Each story, which cues a flashback, explains why he knew the answer to a particular question.  In the hands of Boyle, each story poses as many questions as it answers, surprising the viewer with the frenetic and poignant turns in the boy's life, as well as the stunning and grotesque images of a developing India.

As a director, Danny Boyle has assembled an impressive oeuvre of "genre" films that mix in conventions from other genres.  He made 28 Days Later, his "horror" film, entirely in digital, while still managing to make the film look better than the average horror film.  Nor was he afraid to give his characters dynamic relationships.  He even changed the film's enemy halfway through the story, making the story not so much about escaping the zombies as escaping the militaristic "refuge" established in the wake of the world's zombie infestation.

Slumdog Millionaire, generically a "coming-of-age drama," adds crime, romance, Bollywood, and comedy to the mix to make it sparkle.  Like many of his other films (Millions, The Beach, Trainspotting), Boyle plays with the idea of money, including a character's disavowal of money even as he constantly highlights its importance.  India, with its extreme poverty, juxtapositions of wealth, and dynamic growth, could not be a better backdrop to explore this subject.  In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal (Dev Patel) cares little for money, going on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" only to find his lost love.  His older brother, however, understands the importance of money and propels the duo through an impressive array of hustling professions, each set in a hypnotizing intersection of rich and poor: the economy of foreign tourists visiting the Taj Mahal; an adult-led farm of child beggars; teens squatting in an abandoned luxury high-rise; a helicopter touching down in a cardboard slum.

The film should be noted for its use of music.  One long "hustling" montage (on a train) is accompanied by M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes."  Not only is M.I.A., born in former British colony Sri Lanka, a poster child for the political and economic implications of colonialism, the lyrics of the song include references to hustling, trains, and Third World democracy.  Rarely does a song fit so snugly into the narrative, mood, and thematic concern of a film.  If only American audiences hadn't heard the song first in the Pineapple Express trailer.  Besides "Paper Planes," M.I.A. collaborated with the film's composer, A.R. Rahman, on another one of the film's songs, and NYMag reports Fox Searchlight will push the soundtrack for an Oscar.

FJI profiled director Danny Boyle, and you can read Executive Editor Kevin Lally's review of the film here.