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Slumdog Millionaire
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Slumdog Millionaire is a film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.
After its world premiere at Telluride Film Festival and subsequent screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success.
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Encyclopedia
Slumdog Millionaire is a film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.
After its world premiere at Telluride Film Festival and subsequent screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success. It later had a nationwide release in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009 and in the United States on 23 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009. The DVD and Blu-ray versions are set to be released on 31 March 2009.
Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film of 2008, including Best Picture and Best Director. It also won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film. Despite the film's success, it is the subject of controversy concerning its portrayals of Indians and Hinduism as well as the welfare of its child actors.
Plot
Set in 2006, the film opens with a police inspector (Irrfan Khan) in Mumbai, India, interrogating and torturing Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former street child from the Dharavi slums. In the opening scene, a title card is presented: "Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it? A) He cheated, B) He's lucky, C) He's a genius, D) It is written (which could mean either the show is predetermined by destiny or that the show is scripted)." At the end of the film, the answer is given. Jamal is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati) hosted by Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor) in which he was on the show and won 5,000,000 rupees. Jamal has made it to the final question, scheduled for the next day, but the police are now accusing him of cheating, because the other possibilities, that he has a vast knowledge, or that he is very lucky, both seem unlikely.
Jamal then explains that, while at least the question about Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was very simple, he knew the answers of most questions by chance, because of things that happened in his life. This is conveyed in a series of flashbacks documenting the particulars of his childhood. This includes scenes of him obtaining Bachchan's autograph, the death of his mother during the Hindu anti-Muslim violence, rekindling the memory of the 1993 anti-Muslim attacks in Mumbai by Hindu nationalists in the slums, and how he and his brother Salim befriend Latika (Freida Pinto) (he refers to Salim and himself as Athos and Porthos, and Latika as the third Musketeer.)
The children are eventually discovered by Maman (Ankur Vikal) while they live in the trash heaps. Maman is a gangster (a fact they do not actually know at the time they meet him) who "collects" street children so that he can ultimately train them to beg for money. Salim is groomed to become a part of Maman’s operation and is asked to bring Jamal to Maman in order to be blinded (which would improve his income potential as a singing beggar). Salim rebels against Maman to protect his brother, and the three children try to escape, but only Salim and Jamal are successful as Salim purposely lets go of Latika's hand as she tries to board a train they are hopping while trying to escape. Latika is re-captured by Maman's organization and raised as a culturally talented prostitute whose virginity will fetch a high price.
The brothers eke out a living, traveling on top of trains, selling goods, pretending to be tour guides at the Taj Mahal, and picking pockets. Jamal eventually insists that they return to Mumbai since he wishes to locate Latika. When he finds her working as a dancer in a brothel, the brothers attempt to rescue her, but Maman intrudes, and in the resulting conflict Salim draws a gun and kills Maman. Salim then uses the fact that he killed Maman to obtain a job with Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar), a rival crime lord. Salim claims Latika as his own and when Jamal protests, Salim threatens to kill him and Latika intervenes, accepting her fate with Salim and breaking Jamal's heart.
Years later, Jamal has a position as a "chai-wallah" (a boy or young man who serves tea) at a call centre. When he is asked to cover for a co-worker for a couple of minutes, he searches the database for Salim and Latika. He gets in touch with Salim, who has become a high-ranking lieutenant in Javed’s organization. Jamal confronts a regretful Salim on tense terms. Salim invites Jamal to live with him and, after following Salim to Javed's house, he sees Latika living there. He talks his way in as the new dishwasher and tries to convince Latika to leave. She rebuffs his advances, but he promises to be at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station every day at five p.m. for her. She tries to discourage him, but on the first day that Jamal waits there, Latika attempts to rendezvous with him, but is recaptured by Salim and Javed's men. One of the men then slashes her cheek with a knife, scarring her as Salim drives off, leaving Jamal with the onlooking crowd.
Jamal again loses contact with Latika when Javed moves to another house. In another attempt to find Latika, Jamal tries out for the popular game show because he knows that she will be watching. He makes it to the final question, despite the hostile attitude of the host who feeds Jamal a wrong answer during a break. At the end of the show, Jamal has one question left to win two crore, or 20 million rupees (£281,301, $388,275 U.S.) and is taken into police custody, where he is tortured as the police attempt to learn how Jamal, a simple "slumdog," could know the answers to so many questions. After Jamal tells his whole story, explaining how his life experiences coincidentally enabled him to know the answer to each question, the police inspector calls Jamal's explanation "bizarrely plausible" and, knowing he's not in it for the money, allows him to return to the show for the final question.
At Javed's safehouse, Latika watches the news coverage of Jamal's miraculous run on the show. Salim gives Latika his phone and the keys to his car. He urges her to run away and to "forgive him for what he has done". When Jamal uses his Phone-A-Friend lifeline to call Salim, Latika answers his phone and they reconnect. She does not know the answer to the final question either but, believing that "it is written", she tells Jamal in unsubtitled Hindi, "I'm yours" right before the phone connection is cut. Jamal guesses the correct answer (Aramis) to the question of the one Musketeer whose name they never learned, and wins the grand prize. Simultaneously, Salim is discovered to have helped Latika escape and allows himself to be killed in a bathtub full of money after shooting and killing Javed. Salim's last words are "God is great." Later that night, Jamal and Latika meet at the railway station and they share a kiss. It is then revealed that the correct answer to the opening question is: D) it is written, or implying that it is destiny. In a scene reminiscent of many Bollywood musicals, they then dance, along with dozens of bystanders and even the juvenile versions of themselves, in the train station during the end credits.
Differences from the book Q & A
The Bombay Hindu-Muslim riots played no role in the book, as the ethnic or religious heritage of the main character was uncertain. In the book, the character of Jamal is instead named 'Ram Mohammad Thomas'. He was given a Hindu name, Muslim name and Christian name by the village elders in order to maintain the balance between all the religious communities after his mother abandoned him after birth. Unlike the movie, Ram does not have a biological brother, but Salim is instead his best friend in the novel. He grows up in an orphanage and his only 'brothers' are his fellow orphans. He never knew his mother. Ram is adopted by a Christian priest as a youth, which is where he learns English, and then is nearly molested by a visiting priest. The priest scenes were not included in the script for the movie, and the movie does not explain how Jamal learned fluent English. Latika is not his childhood friend in the book but rather a prostitute named Nita that Ram falls in love with in a brothel when he's 18.
Production
Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy wrote Slumdog Millionaire based on the Boeke Prize winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize nominated novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup. To hone the script, Beaufoy made three research trips to India and interviewed street children, finding himself impressed with their attitudes. The screenwriter said of his goal for the script: "I wanted to get (across) the sense of this huge amount of fun, laughter, chat, and sense of community that is in these slums. What you pick up on is this mass of energy."
By the summer of 2006, British production companies Celador Films and Film4 Productions invited director Danny Boyle to read the script Slumdog Millionaire. Boyle initially hesitated, since he was not interested in making a film about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Boyle soon found out that the screenwriter was Beaufoy, who had written The Full Monty (1997), one of the director's favorite British films, and decided to revisit the script. Boyle was impressed by how Beaufoy wove the multiple storylines from Swarup's book into one narrative, and the director decided to commit to the project. The film was projected to cost US$15 million, so Celador sought a distributor to share costs. Fox Searchlight Pictures made an initial offer that was reportedly in the $2 million range, and Warner Independent Pictures made a $5 million offer that Fox Searchlight could not top.
Gail Stevens came on board to oversee casting globally. Stevens has worked with Boyle throughout his career and is well-known for discovering new talent. Meredith Tucker was appointed to cast out of the US. The film-makers then travelled to Mumbai in September 2007 with a partial crew and began hiring local cast and crew for production in Karjat. Originally appointed as one of the five casting directors in India, Loveleen Tandan, has stated that she "suggested to Danny and Simon Beaufoy, the writer of Slumdog, that it was important to do some of it in Hindi to bring the film alive [...] They asked me to pen the Hindi dialogues which I, of course, instantly agreed to do. And as we drew closer to the shoot date, Danny asked me to step in as the co-director." Boyle then decided to translate nearly a third of the film's English dialogue into Hindi. The director fibbed to Warner Independent's president that he wanted 10% of the dialogue in Hindi, and she approved of the change. Filming locations included shooting in Mumbai's megaslum and in shantytown parts of Juhu, so film-makers controlled the crowds by befriending onlookers. Filming began on 5 November 2007.
In addition to Swarup's original novel Q & A, the film was also inspired by Indian cinema. Tandan has referred to Slumdog Millionaire as an homage to Hindi commercial cinema, noting that "Simon Beaufoy studied Salim-Javed's kind of cinema minutely." Boyle has cited the influence of several Bollywood films set in Mumbai. Satya (screenplay co-written by Saurabh Shukla, who plays Constable Srinivas in Slumdog Millionaire) and Company (based on the D-Company) both offered "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld" and displayed realistic "brutality and urban violence." Boyle has also stated that the chase in one of the opening scenes of Slumdog Millionaire was based on a "12-minute police chase through the crowded Dharavi slum" in Black Friday (adapted from S. Hussein Zaidi's book of the same name about the 1993 Bombay bombings). Deewaar, which Boyle described as being "absolutely key to Indian cinema," is a crime film based on the Bombay gangster Haji Mastan, portrayed by Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, whose autograph Jamal sought at the beginning of Slumdog Millionaire. Anil Kapoor noted that some scenes of the film "are like Deewaar, the story of two brothers of whom one is completely after money while the younger one is honest and not interested in money." Boyle has cited other Indian films as influences in subsequent interviews. The rags to riches underdog theme underlying the film was also a recurring theme in classic Bollywood movies from the 1950s through to the 1980s, when "India worked to lift itself from hunger and poverty." Other classic Bollywood tropes in the film include "the fantasy sequences" and the montage sequence where "the brothers jump off a train and suddenly they are seven years older".
Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, the current host for Kaun Banega Crorepati (the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?), was initially offered the role of the show's host in the film, but he eventually turned it down (the role was ultimately played by another Bollywood star, Anil Kapoor). Paul Smith, the executive producer of Slumdog Millionaire and the chairman of Celador Films, had previously owned the international rights to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Cast
- Dev Patel as Jamal Malik, the protagonist, a Muslim boy born and raised in the poverty of Mumbai. Boyle considered hundreds of young male actors, although he found that Bollywood leads were generally "strong, handsome hero-types", Indian actor Ruslaan Mumtaz was almost selected for the role, but the producer of the film "found Ruslaan too good looking for the role" and not the personality they were looking for. Boyle's daughter pointed Dev Patel out from the British television ensemble drama Skins, of which he was a cast member.
- Freida Pinto as Latika, the girl with whom Jamal is in love. Pinto was an Indian model who had not starred in a feature film before. Regarding the "one of a kind" scarf she wears, designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb says, "I wanted to bookend the journey—to tie her childhood yellow dress to her final look."
- Rubina Ali as Youngest Latika. Rubina is a child from the Mumbai slums in real life.
- Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar as Middle Latika
- Madhur Mittal as Salim, Jamal's elder brother.
- Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail as Youngest Salim. Azharuddin is a child from the Mumbai slums in real life.
- Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala as Middle Salim
- Anil Kapoor as Prem Kumar, the game show host. Boyle initially wanted Indian actor Shahrukh Khan to play the role but things didn't work out. Khan is the real life host of the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire.
- Irrfan Khan as the Police Inspector
- Saurabh Shukla as Constable Srinivas
- Mahesh Manjrekar as Javed
- Ankur Vikal as Maman
- Rajendranath Zutshi as the Millionaire show producer
- Sanchita Choudhary as Jamal's mother
- Shah Rukh Munshi as a slum kid. Shah Rukh is a child from the Mumbai slums in real life.
- Mozhim Shakim Sheikh Qureshi as a crippled slum kid. Mozhim Shakim is a child from the Mumbai slums in real life.
- Janet de Vigne as the German tourist at the Taj Mahal.
Release and box office performance
In August 2007 Warner Independent Pictures acquired the American and Pathé the international rights to distribute Slumdog Millionaire theatrically. Warner Independent Pictures paid $5 million to acquire these rights to the film and became a co-producer. However, in May 2008, Warner Independent Pictures was shut down, with all of its projects being transferred to Warner Bros. Pictures, its parent studio. Warner Bros. doubted the commercial prospects of Slumdog Millionaire and suggested that it would go straight to DVD without a U.S. theatrical release. In August 2008, the studio began searching for buyers for various productions, to relieve its overload of end-of-the-year films. Halfway through the month, Warner Bros. entered into a pact with Fox Searchlight Pictures to share distribution of the film, with Fox Searchlight buying 50% of Warner Bros.'s interest in the movie. As of 3 March 2009, the film has grossed $213,378,320 worldwide.
North America
and Freida Pinto at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival]]
Slumdog Millionaire was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival on 30 August 2008, where it was positively received by audiences, generating "strong buzz". The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2008, where it was "the first widely acknowledged popular success" of the festival, winning the People's Choice Award. Slumdog Millionaire debuted with a limited North American release on 12 November 2008, followed by a nationwide release in the United States on 23 January 2009.
In its first week, the film grossed an "impressive" $350,434 in 10 theatres, a "strong" average of $35,043 per theatre. In its second weekend, it expanded to 32 theatres and made $947,795, or an average of $29,619 per theatre, representing a drop of only 16%. In the 10 original theatres that it was released in, viewership went up 16%, and this is attributed to strong word-of-mouth. The film opened in wide release on 26 December 2008 at 614 theaters and grossed $4,301,870. In the weekend of 23-25 January 2009, the film reached the widest release at 1,411 theaters. Following its success at the 81st Academy Awards, the film's takings increased by 43% on the week starting 27 February 2009, the most for any film since Titanic (1997).
As of 8 March 2009, the film has grossed $125.4 million at the North American box office.
United Kingdom
The film released in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009, and opened at #2 at the UK box office. The film reached #1 in its second weekend and set a UK box office record, as the film's takings increased by 47%. This is the "biggest ever increase for a UK saturation release," breaking "the record previously held by Billy Elliot's 13%." This record-breaking "ticket surge" in the second weekend came after Slumdog Millionaire won four Golden Globes and received eleven BAFTA nominations. The film grossed £6.1 million in its first eleven days of release in the UK. The takings increased by another 7% the following weekend, bringing the film's gross up to £10.24 million for its first seventeen days in the UK, and up to £14.2 million in its third week.
As of 20 February 2009, the film's UK box office gross was £22,973,110, making it "the eighth biggest hit at UK cinemas of the past 12 months." As of 2 March 2009, following its success at the 81st Academy Awards where it won eight Oscars, the film has returned to #1 at the UK box office, grossing £26 million to date.
India
The Indian premiere of Slumdog Millionaire took place in Mumbai on 22 January 2009 and was attended by major personalities of the Indian film industry, with more than a hundred attending this event. A dubbed Hindi version, Slumdog Crorepati (??????? ????????), was also released in India in addition to the original version of the film. Originally titled, Slumdog Millionaire: Kaun Banega Crorepati, the name was shortened for legal reasons. Loveleen Tandan, who supervised the dubbing, stated: "All the actors from the original English including Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan and Ankur Vikal dubbed the film. We got a boy from Chembur Pradeep Motwani to dub for the male lead Dev Patel. I didn't want any exaggerated dubbing. I wanted a young unspoilt voice."
Fox Searchlight released 351 prints of the film across India for its full release there on 23 January 2009. It earned Rs. 2,35,45,665 in its first week at the Indian box office, or $2.2 million according to Fox Searchlight. Though not as successful as major Bollywood releases in India during its first week, this was the highest weekend gross for any Fox film and the third highest for any Western release in the country, behind Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Casino Royale (2006). In its second week, the film's gross rose to Rs. 3,04,70,752 at the Indian box office.
A few analysts have offered their opinions for the film's performance at the Indian box office. Trade analyst Komal Nahta commented that, "there was a problem with the title itself. Slumdog is not a familiar word for majority Indians." In addition, trade analyst, Amod Mehr has stated that with the exception of Anil Kapoor, the film lacks recognizable stars and that "the film ... is not ideally suited for Indian sentiment." A cinema owner commented that "to hear slum boys speaking perfect English doesn't seem right but when they are speaking in Hindi, the film seems much more believable." The dubbed Hindi version, Slumdog Crorepati, has done better at the box office and more copies of that version were released. As of 1 March 2009, Slumdog Crorepati has grossed Rs. 13,25,51,126 at the Indian box office.
Critical reception
Awards and honours
| Academy Awards record |
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| 1. Best Picture, Christian Colson | | 2. Best Director, Danny Boyle | | 3. Best Adapted Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy | | 4. Best Cinematography , Anthony Dod Mantle | | 5. Best Original Score, A. R. Rahman | | 6. Best Original Song - Jai Ho, A. R. Rahman | | 7. Best Film Editing, Chris Dickens | | 8. Best Sound Mixing, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pyke and Ian Tapp | | Golden Globe Awards record |
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| 1. Best Picture - Drama | | 2. Best Director, Danny Boyle | | 3. Best Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy | | 4. Best Original Score, A. R. Rahman | | BAFTA Awards record |
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| 1. Best Film, Christian Colson | | 2. Best Director, Danny Boyle | | 3. Best Adapted Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy | | 4. Best Cinematography, Anthony Dod Mantle | | 5. Best Film Music, A. R. Rahman | | 6. Best Editing, Chris Dickens | | 7. Best Sound, Glenn Freemantle, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pyke, Tom Sayers, Ian Tapp |
Slumdog Millionaire is highly acclaimed, named in the top ten lists of various newspapers. On 22 February 2009 the film won eight out of ten Academy Awards it was nominated for, including the Best Picture and Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song (two songs were nominated from the film; "Jai Ho" won the award), losing only Best Sound Editing to The Dark Knight. It is only the eighth film ever to win eight Academy Awards.
The film also won all four of the Golden Globe Awards it was nominated for, including Best Drama Film; five of the six Critics' Choice Awards for which it was nominated; and seven of the eleven BAFTA Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Film.
Reactions from the Western world
Slumdog Millionaire has been critically acclaimed in the Western world. As of 21 February 2009, Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 94% rating with a 186 fresh and twelve rotten reviews. The average score is 8.2/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 86, based on 36 reviews. Movie City News shows that the film appeared in 123 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the 3rd most mentions on a top ten list of any film released in 2008.
Most Western reviewers were strictly positive about the movie. For example, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film four out of four stars, stating that it is, "a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating." Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern refers to Slumdog Millionaire as, "the film world's first globalized masterpiece." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post argues that, "this modern-day "rags-to-rajah" fable won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, and it's easy to see why. With its timely setting of a swiftly globalizing India and, more specifically, the country's own version of the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" TV show, combined with timeless melodrama and a hardworking orphan who withstands all manner of setbacks, "Slumdog Millionaire" plays like Charles Dickens for the 21st century." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times describes the film as "a Hollywood-style romantic melodrama that delivers major studio satisfactions in an ultra-modern way" and "a story of star-crossed romance that the original Warner brothers would have embraced, shamelessly pulling out stops that you wouldn't think anyone would have the nerve to attempt anymore." Several other reviewers have described Slumdog Millionaire as a Bollywood-style "Masala" movie, due to the way the film combines "familiar raw ingredients into a feverish masala" and culminates in "the romantic leads finding each other."
Other critics offered more mixed reviews. For example, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five stars, stating that "despite the extravagant drama and some demonstrations of the savagery meted out to India's street children, this is a cheerfully undemanding and unreflective film with a vision of India that, if not touristy exactly, is certainly an outsider's view; it depends for its full enjoyment on not being taken too seriously." He also pointed out that the film is co-produced by Celador Films, who own the rights to the original Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and claimed that “it functions as a feature-length product placement for the programme.” A few critics also panned it. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle states that, "Slumdog Millionaire has a problem in its storytelling. The movie unfolds in a start-and-stop way that kills suspense, leans heavily on flashbacks and robs the movie of most of its velocity.... [T]he whole construction is tied to a gimmicky narrative strategy that keeps Slumdog Millionaire from really hitting its stride until the last 30 minutes. By then, it's just a little too late." Eric Hynes of IndieWIRE called it "bombastic", "a noisy, sub-Dickens update on the romantic tramp's tale" and "a goofy picaresque to rival Forrest Gump" in its morality and romanticism.
Reactions from India and Indian diaspora
Praise
The film has been a subject of discussion among a variety of people in India and the Indian diaspora. Indian film critics have "largely embraced the movie." Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India calls it "a piece of riveting cinema, meant to be savoured as a Cinderella-like fairy tale, with the edge of a thriller and the vision of an artist." She also argues against criticism of the film stating that, "it was never meant to be a documentary on the down and out in Dharavi. And it isn't." Renuka Vyavahare of Indiatimes suggests that, "the film is indeed very Indian" and that it is "one of the best English films set in India and revolving around the country’s most popular metropolis Mumbai." Kaveree Bamzai of India Today calls the film "feisty" and argues that it is "Indian at its core and Western in its technical flourish." Anand Giridharadas argues in The New York Times that the film has a "freshness" which "portrays a changing India, with great realism, as something India long resisted being: a land of self-makers, where a scruffy son of the slums can, solely of his own effort, hoist himself up, flout his origins, break with fate." Giridharadas also calls the film "a tribute to the irrepressible self." Poorna Shetty states in the The Guardian that "Boyle's depiction of Mumbai is spot on." She further states that the film displays the "human aspect of the slums and the irrepressible energy and life force of the place" and "a breathing snapshot of the city that is always stripped of its warmth when depicted in the news." Khalid Mohamed gave the film a full 5-star rating, which he has previously given to very few films, including Satya (1998).
Criticism
Criticism by reviewers
On the other hand, Mukul Kesavan of The Telegraph (Kolkata) states that the film is "a hybrid so odd" (due to the decision to have the first third in Hindi and the remainder in English) "that it becomes hard for the Indian viewer to do the thing that he so effortlessly does with Ghajini or Om Shanti Om — namely, suspend disbelief." Kesavan further states that, "the transition from child actors who in real life are slum children to young actors who are, just as clearly, middle-class anglophones is so abrupt and inexplicable that it subverts the ‘realism’ of the brilliantly shot squalor in which their lives play out." Film critic Gautaman Bhaskaran questioned the "euphoria in India" in a review for The Seoul Times after the film's release there, arguing that with a few exceptions, "there is nothing Indian about this film." Bhaskaran questions inconsistencies in the plot and concludes that it is a film of "very little substance" as well as "superficial and insensitive." Another film critic (author of The Essential Guide to Bollywood), Subhash K. Jha, also states in Bollywood Hungama that he found the film "over-hyped and disappointing" and also suggests that the territory has already been covered by Indian filmmakers (Mira Nair in Salaam Bombay and Satyajit Ray in the Apu Trilogy). Soutik Biswas of the BBC further argues that Slumdog Millionaire is an imitation of Indian films that have been "routinely ignored" and suggests that, "if you are looking for gritty realism set in the badlands of Mumbai, order a DVD of a film called Satya by Ramgopal Verma. The 1998 feature on an immigrant who is sucked into Mumbai's colourful underworld makes Slumdog look like a slick, uplifting MTV docu-drama." An American working as a critic in India, Matthew Schneeberger, opined:
Sudip Mazumdar of Newsweek wrote:
Criticism by filmmakers
In addition, filmmakers have commented on the film. Bollywood director and superstar Aamir Khan (whose film Taare Zameen Par was India's submission to the Academy Awards but was not chosen as a finalist for Best Foreign Film)
stated in an interview with NDTV that he doesn't "see ‘Slumdog...’ as an Indian film." In a second interview with NDTV after the Oscar wins, Khan stated that, "I have seen Slumdog and the film didn't work for me" and that "for someone who lives here, the film goes over the top. Nevertheless, I am very happy that the people are liking the movie." He also praised the win by Resul Pookutty in the interview as well as A. R. Rahman and Gulzar in his personal blog. Director and filmmaker Priyadarshan criticized Slumdog Millionaire as a film which is a "mediocre version of those commercial films about estranged brothers and childhood sweethearts that Salim-Javed used to write so brilliantly in the 1970s." He also stated that he viewed the film at the Toronto Film Festival and that, "The Westerners loved it. All the Indian[s] hated it. The West loves to see us as a wasteland, filled with horror stories of exploitation and degradation. But is that all there's to our beautiful city of Mumbai?" Similarly, filmmaker Aadesh Shrivastava expressed outrage at the stereotyping portrayals of Indians in the film. He claimed that the film's release in the United States has led to the word "slumdog" being used as a slur against Indian Americans, and criticized the positive reaction by some Indians towards to what he sees as a film that directly attacks and insults India.
Criticism by Salman Rushdie
Noted novelist and critic Salman Rushdie, in his essay on film adaptations, "A Fine Pickle," argues that the plot of Swarup's novel, Q & A, is "a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name. It is a plot device faithfully preserved by the film-makers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief." Rushdie also questions Boyle's admission that he made the film in part because he was unfamiliar with India, asking, "I imagined an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion. But for a first world director to say that about the third world is considered praiseworthy, an indication of his artistic daring. The double standards of post-colonial attitudes have not yet wholly faded away." He also made similar statements at a talk given at Emory University arguing that Slumdog Millionaire "piles impossibility on impossibility." In an earlier interview with The New York Times, Rushdie also noted that he is "not a very big fan" of Slumdog Millionaire. [...] I think it’s visually brilliant. But I have problems with the story line. I find the storyline unconvincing. It just couldn’t happen. I’m not adverse to magic realism but there has to be a level of plausibility, and I felt there were three or four moments in the film where the storyline breached that rule."
Academic criticism
Authors and scholars have also responded more critically to the film. Radha Chadha, co-author of The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia's Love Affair with Luxury (with Paul Husband), offers an analysis of the film in Livemint. She argues that while Slumdog Millionaire is entertaining, it is still a "masala film," the kind of Bollywood product which Indians grow up watching. As to its popularity in the West, she further suggests that what is "ordinary" (in terms of film genre) for an Indian audience, "is extraordinary for the world" and that "the mesmerizing soft power of Bollywood which has kept a billion Indians enthralled for decades is touching the rest of the world." Priya Joshi, Associate Professor of English at Temple University, argues that the film's indebtedness to Bollywood film runs much deeper than the happy ending, "In the same way that Cinema Paradiso paid homage to the transformative power of Hollywood movies of the 1940s, Slumdog testifies to the power of Bollywood's blockbusters from the 1970s, and it's no accident that the first question on the quiz show is about the 1973 hit Zanjeer." Assistant Professor of sociology (Wellesley College) Smitha Radhakrishnan states in UCLA's Asia Pacific Arts journal that the film offers "an action-packed, devastating, intriguing, and oddly beautiful world." Radhakrishnan also argues that while its "outsider's" view offers an "unexpected advantage," there were notable "slip-ups" of which the "most glaring was the language. Despite the plausible explanation that Jamal and Salim picked up English, posing as tour guides at the Taj Mahal, it is highly implausible that they would come out of that experience speaking perfect British English, as Dev Patel does in portraying the grown-up Jamal. It's highly implausible that he would speak to Latika and Salim in English as an adult too." Professor Vrinda Nabar, the former Chair of English at the University of Mumbai, argues that the film ignores the "complexity" of Mumbai as "a city in which sensitivity coexists with despair, commitment with indifference, activism with inaction, and humanism with the inhumane." Shyamal Sengupta, a professor of film studies at the Whistling Woods International Institute for Films, Media, Animationa and Media Arts in Mumbai, criticized the film for its stereotypical portrayals of Indians by calling it a "white man's imagined India. It's not quite snake charmers, but it's close. It's a poverty tour." Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava are also critical, writing in The New York Times that the film misrepresents and stereotypes the Dharavi slum in Mumbai Ananda Mitra, professor and chair of communication at Wake Forest University, views Slumdog Millionaire as a modern-day retelling of 1970s Bollywood films, citing Nasir Hussain's Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973) in particular.
Soundtrack
The Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman who planned the score over two months and completed it in two weeks. Rahman won the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and won two out of the three nominations for the Academy Awards, including one for Best Original Score and one for Best Original Song, the song "O... Saya" got a nomination shared with M.I.A. and the other song "Jai Ho" won the award and was shared with lyricist Gulzar. The soundtrack was released on M.I.A.'s record label N.E.E.T. Radio Sargam termed the soundtrack "magnum opus and the entire world is known to this fact."
Controversies
Loveleen Tandan
A Chicago film critic launched an online campaign to demand that Loveleen Tandan, who Danny Boyle appointed as co-director for the film, be nominated for Best Director alongside Boyle at the Golden Globes and the 81st Academy Awards. The campaign organizer Jan Lisa Huttner noted "how rare it is for female directors to be in the awards race." After finding out about this campaign, Tandan sought to end it, stating, "I can't tell you how embarrassed I am by this [...] The suggestion is highly inappropriate, and I am writing to you to stress that I would not wish it to be considered."
Slumdog Millionaires producer Christian Colson says Tandan's credit is being misconstrued to mean she is on equal creative footing with Boyle. Colson stated that Tandan's title was "strange but deserved" and was created to identify her as "one of our key cultural bridges."
Amitabh Bachchan
One of the first celebrities thought to have discussed the film was "Bollywood legend" Amitabh Bachchan, from whom young Jamal eagerly seeks an autograph in the beginning of the film and who was the original presenter for Kaun Banega Crorepati. On 13 January 2009 he stated in his blog that on another part of his blog there were "comments for the film ‘SlumDog Millionaire’" which he noted indicated "anger by some on its contents." He further states that, "if SM projects India as Third World dirty under belly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky under belly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations." Bachchan also states: "It's just that the SM idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not." This entry was widely reported on by the press as a criticism of the film.
In a later entry, Bachchan responded to these media reports by stating: "Fact is - some one mentioned the film on my blog...I merely put both of them up and invited debate [...] Media, in India has taken the pros and cons of OTHERS, as MINE, built their headlines and put it safely out, thereby, causing the consternation." In another entry, Bachchan states that Anil Kapoor invited him by phone to the premiere of the film. During the same phone call, Bachchan also spoke with Danny Boyle and described him as "gracious and complimentary to me and my work." Bachchan states that he offered his "apologies" over headlines "created by media" and that Boyle "understands and acknowledges my calling him." Following the film's release in India on 23 January 2009, Bachchan called the movie "wonderful" and praised the fact that A.R. Rahman received three Oscar nominations. Bachchan stated: "I feel this win by Rahman and Rasool is most deserving and feel extremely proud to be an Indian."
Protests and lawsuits
Following its release in India, the film faced criticism from various members of the public alleging that the film fuels western stereotypes about poverty in India and that it peddles "poverty porn". Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, a representative of a slum-dwellers' welfare group, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the film's music composer A.R. Rahman and actor Anil Kapoor, alleging that slum-dwellers were depicted in a bad light which would be a violation of their human rights. Vishwakarma's lawsuit alleged that the name of the movie is derogatory and he was particularly displeased that Indians associated with the film did not object to the use of word "slumdog." Nicholas Almeida, a social activist working in Mumbai, organized a protest against the film on the grounds that it intentionally exploited the poor for the purposes of profit, and that the title 'Slumdog millionaire" was offensive, demeaning and insulted their dignity. The protesters were slum dwellers in Mumbai, holding posters like "I am not a dog" who objected to being dehumanized as "dogs" in the film title.
Slum dwellers in Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar, have also protested against the movie. Activists have reported that slum dwellers will continue to protest until the film's director deletes the word 'dog' from the title. Protests in Patna intensified on 26 January 2009, when "protesters tore down posters and ransacked a movie theatre" screening the film. The following day, the police in Bihar tightened security "outside theatres in the state to thwart any further attacks."
Hindu Janjagruti Samiti has protested against the film for its allegedly inappropriate portrayal of the Hindu God Rama. The activist group believes that the portrayal of Rama is derogatory and "hurts the sentiments of Hindus". Writing for the conservative Daily Pioneer, Kanchan Gupta reiterated the objections of the activist group that the film provides a one-sided portrayal of the complexities of religious conflict in India, and that the film depicts Hindus as "rapacious monsters".
Child actors
According to the UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (who played Salim as a child) was paid £1,700 during filming, whilst the Economic times of India claims he was paid £700, and Rubina Ali (who played Latika as a child) £500 for a year’s work on the film. The child actors continue to live in makeshift shacks in the slums of Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, according to the Telegraph and ABC News. A Fox Searchlight spokesman has responded that for their one-month work on the film, the child actors were paid three times the amount of an average annual salary for an adult living in their neighborhood. Both children were found places in a local school and receive £20 a month for books and food.
On 26 January 2009 Danny Boyle (director) and Christian Colson (producer) released a written statement saying that they had “paid painstaking and considered attention to how Azhar and Rubina’s involvement in the film could be of lasting benefit to them over and above the payment they received for their work”. Boyle and Colson have stated that they have "set up trust funds for Rubina and Azharuddin and paid for their education," although the exact amount of the trust funds is not known. This has also been met with criticism as there is question as to how children growing up in the slums have any expectation of being able to attend higher education, making the trust fund potentially useless.. Azharuddin will have £17,500 pounds put into a trust fund which he will get, plus interest, when he is 18. His father has been quoted as saying "My son has taken on the world and won. I am so proud of him but I want more money. They promised me a new house but it hasn't happened. I'm still in the slum. I want the money now, it is of no use later. Mr Boyle should take care of my son." “There is none of the money left. It was all spent on medicines to help me fight TB,” Azharuddin’s father, Mohammed Ismail has said
Boyle has explained that, "We don't want to reveal exact figures about what's in the trust fund, what's in the bank account for them for when they leave school because it will make them vulnerable and a target really but it is substantial, and they will hopefully gain benefit from the film long after the film has disappeared and long after the media who are chasing them at the moment sadly have lost interest in the film and that's been our approach throughout and I think it's the right approach."
Both Azharuddin and Rubina attended the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009, along with all of the other actors that played Salim, Jamal and Latika. Azharuddin was accompanied by his mother Shameem Ismail, while Rubina was accompanied by her uncle. On 25 February 2009 the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority announced that both Azharuddin and Rubina would be given "free houses" so that they would no longer have to live in the Mumbai slum of Garib Nagar.
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