Eureka! A Slumdog Millionaire Film Review

After reading this short and poignant piece, I FINALLY have a metaphor about Slumdog Millionaire and why I disliked it.

Imagine Danny Boyle in one of the open air wood platform toilets that the author describes.  Except we’ll call it his movie office.  Outside, there’s an agent banging on his door for a movie.  There are others trying to get inside; the agent’s anxious to put him in that toilet/office instead of Boyle.

Suddenly, overhead, we hear the helicopter bearing Amitabh Bachchan!  Except instead it’s multiple awards ceremonies, ready to greet the throngs of people who respect their work.  Boyle hears someone mention the awards, one by one.  He realizes he’s trapped in his toilet/office, though!  His agent locked him inside to meet Bachchan/the awards ceremonies!  And Boyle has with him an image of Bachchan/an Oscar.  

He then looks down into the toilet/the worst of India’s slums.  He doesn’t really care what’s down there; but he sees a way to Bachchan/an Oscar.  And he carefully holds the Oscar picture above him and holds his nose.  

He bravely dives into Bollywood, into India, into the shit — holding Bachchan/an Oscar high above his head.  Covered in brown (but not suffering the effects, strangely), he makes his way through the present screaming crowd without getting shit on them and he bears the Oscar ticket/Bachchan picture to the Academy/Bachchan for signature.  Validation.  

And rather unbelievably, without mention of how Boyle arrived there, why he’s covered in brown, where it came from — the Academy/Bachchan fulfills his request.  Boyle cheers.  And later we see Hollywood/Boyle’s mother bathing him clean of the shit. 

Sound unbelievable?  That’s what just happened last night at the Oscars.

It’s bad enough when none of the actors in this spectacular film merited an individual award based on their talents.  It’s bad enough when one of the crew members honored by the Academy calls a cast member by her character’s name instead of her real name (“Latika” is Freida Pinto, btw).  

But it’s downright cruel to pretend that this movie is the quintessential best thing since sliced bread when you could have taken the basic plot and placed it in any country, allowed a limited amount of cultural depth, and likely generated the same basic movie.  I don’t think it’s easy to say it’s Bollywood and that’s it; it was very Western fairytale/American Dream in its scope, superimposed on the Mumbai slums.  The Disneyesque foray into poverty, the wide-eyed singleminded pursuit of love at all costs that brings a person to win a game show, the two-dimensional character development… to be honest, the movie reminded me of an anime.  People have heard me crow this for a little over a month; but it does, from the plot line and overall settings of the story down to the camera shots and the dialogue.

But was it feel good?  Yes.  Feel good moments are superficial most of the time, and this time was no different.