Slumdog Millionaire

I finally was able to see Slumdog Millionaire and I can't rave enough about the movie! I'm so glad that I was able to see it before I left on my trip. If you haven't heard by now, Slumdog Millionaire is the award-winning movie that tells the story of a slumdweller who wins Rs. 1,000,000 on an Indian game show and is immediately imprisoned under suspicion of cheating. The storyline develops as he explains how he actually knew the answers to the questions. And, like in any good Indian movie, there is a love story that goes along with it.


As you may or may not know, Slumdog Millionaire is loosely based on the book Q & A by Vikas Swarup. I want to emphasize the words loosely based on here because other than the rough outline of the story there are few similarities between the book and the movie. I read the book over the summer, and while I was entertained by the premise of the book, I found it a bit lacking in the way it was carried out. The movie, however, seemed to encapsulate the story a bit better.

Now that the movie is being nominated and talked about, it is interesting to see what criticisms are leveled against it. Even before I saw the movie, my eye was caught by a blog post titled Slumdog Millionaire Could Only Have Been Made By A Westerner. In the post, the author claims that only a Westerner could produce a movie that addresses the poverty that such a large part of India's population lives with daily. He levels sharp criticism at Bollywood for ignoring the poor and making only 'flimsy films about the lives of the middle class'. But is that really the issue with Slumdog Millionaire? First of all, director Danny Boyle loves India-he has admitted so and you can see it in practically every scene in Slumdog Millionaire. But, was the purpose of the film to address poverty in India? No, it was the rags-to-riches storyline that moviegoers love. Secondly, Bollywood does make stories that have a certain formula to them, stories that showcase love triumphing over all obstacles. But who do these movies appeal to the most? The same poor that the Bollywood elite is accused of ignoring. Movies in India are especially designed to be a fantasy world, in order to help the viewer escape the realities of their own life. We must remember that the relative cost to see a movie in India (vs. seeing one in the US) makes it an affordable escape for even those slumdwellers shown in Slumdog Millionaire. So, is Bollywood making mindless drivel while ignoring the majority of their countrymen, or are they catering to their largest market?

In my opinion, Slumdog Millionaire is a success because it brings to a Western audience the fantasy of a Bollywood movie in a format that they can appreciate. It will be interesting to see how it will continue to perform in India-whether it will appeal to the masses or merely the more 'Westernized' segment of the country.