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Slumdog Millionaire2008120 minutesRated R (language, adult situations, violence)Opens November 12 in limited release
There has been an ongoing debate for the last several years about the very concept of knowledge. With the advances of the internet and billions of people literally having any piece of information at their fingertips, what is the real benefit of knowledge? Why teach children facts when they can look them up in five seconds on Wikipedia or Google? Why devour trivia books (such as Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) when any random fact is available upon request? While there will always be such people as myself who take pride in knowing as much as possible about as much as possible (I'm not a 'know-it-all', I'm a 'want to know-it-all'), what practical purpose remains for storing facts, dates, names, and events when the answer key to the world is sitting at your fingertips?
Loveleen Tandan and Danny Boyle's delightful fable Slumdog Millionaire suggests that our lives can be considered a sum of our knowledge. The more we do, the more we experience, then the more we know. Hence, the more we know, the richer our lives have been and can be. The film concerns a single life, up to the age of eighteen, told against the backdrop of an event that could transform that life forever.
The plot -- Jamil Malik (Skins' Dev Patel) has lived a tough and brutal life as an impoverished child in Mumbai, India. But now, through luck and perhaps intent, he sits in the winner's circle of the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? As he awaits the final question that will award him 20 million rupees, he is arrested and detained by Mumbai police on suspicion of cheating. Doctors, lawyers, and scientists have never won as much money on this show, so how could a poor kid from the slums possibly know so much? With his life possibly hanging in the balance, Malik tells his interrogator the story of his life up to that point, with highlighting key events that will explain how be came to know the answers to the questions thus far.
That's all you get, and that's all you want going in. The film is a simple one, and the life of Malik sometimes flirts with cliche. But the movie succeeds as a sum of its parts, and its slow-building power becomes intoxicating. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, with widescreen vistas of India contrasting with sharp, intrusive closeups during interrogation scenes. The scenes set on the game show itself are both electric and claustrophobic, with Boyle doing his best to approximate the feeling of being on that once legendary show.
The acting is uniformly excellent, but it never stands out and never overpowers the narrative. Each of the leads is played by three different actors as they age, and each young actor blends seamlessly with the one following or proceeding. Of the cast, only Anil Kapoor stands out. He has fun playing the game show host, a seemingly jovial man of shifting motives and complicated feelings about having his spotlight stolen by this genuinely interesting young man.
And, unlike several other Danny Boyle pictures, the film actually has a compelling third act and an emotionally involving climax. No spoilers, but the film does not go sliding off the rails in the manner of 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and The Beach. Granted, he was loosely adapting Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A, but I was genuinely fearful that Boyle would once again drop the third-act ball. No worries, the last act is, if anything, superior to its somewhat dragging initial first act set-up.
In the end, Boyle and Tandan have made an enchanting story about the power of knowledge, knowledge gained from experiences and gained from life itself. The film sneaks up on the audience, slowly building emotional investment until the moviegoers are playing along with Malik and holding their breaths at the end. It is easily one of the more charming and original movies of this year and is absolutely perfect family entertainment for anyone over the age of ten. It is a celebration of not just the usual triumph of the human spirit, but a celebration of the human experience. For it's not just what you know, it's how you came to know it.
Grade: **** out of 5
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Review: Slumdog Millionaire
It is always difficult for the average moviegoer to keep things straight during Oscar season. There are movies all around being advertised as “Best of the Year,” throwing marketing materials in your face with a laundry list of quotes from critics. It can become a hyperbolic nightmare in an instant, sending Joe the movielover off to see the latest Keanu movie instead of taking a chance on a great piece of art. The season also gets people talking about movies that would normally be way off their radar. This year, all of the buzz seems to be going in the director of “that Indian movie” that isn’t quite so Indian, yet isn’t too far off either. Directed by a Brit (Danny Boyle), based on a book by a former Indian diplomat and delivered with generous helpings of Bollywood flash and old-fashioned Hollywood-style romantic melodrama, Slumdog Millionaire is one of this year’s movies that will make you believe in the hype, among other things.
One thing I’ve always believed in is that in order for a film to truly be great, it has to lock down three core elements: writing, directing and acting. Elementary in thought, I know, but if you take every film and analyze it with these three elements front of mind, you’ll be taking first steps toward being able to think about them critically. The story of Slumdog Millionaire is a simple one — Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is on the verge of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” but he’s been arrested on suspicion of cheating. In his attempt to explain how he knew all of the answers, Jamal is forced to recall the sometimes painful memories from his childhood that led him to know them all. And through a series of flashbacks we watch Jamal’s life unfold, filled with hardships, a tough relationship with his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) and his unwavering love for his childhood friend Latika (Freida Pinto).
The film is told through a series of flashbacks linking the jailed Jamal in the present with the hardships of his past. While Jamal’s love for Latika remains the center of the story throughout, the film never strays away from giving us big helpings of reality and gut-wrentching drama. It is fluffy, somewhat implausible love story in one moment and real world tragedy in the next, keeping its audience engaged at every turn. As well, the performances from all three actors that portray Jamal through the stages of his life sell him as our slum-born hero. He’s a character so likable that it really isn’t fair. All we are left to do is pull for him.
As important as it is to start with a great story, which in this case comes in the form of a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy adapted from the novel “Q&A” by Vikas Swarup, it is just as important to have a director who can bring a unique vision to the material. And for Slumdog, Danny Boyle had the perfect vision for how to deliver this story unto the screen. He displays an amazing feel for environment as character, Boyle delivers what his fans have come to expect — throbbing music, jaunty editing, showy cinematography — and when necessary, a delicate touch for the intimate moments. It all fuses perfectly to create the film’s infectious energy — an energy that never lets up, through the tragedy and the triumph — all the way up to the rousingly silly Bollywood-style dance number during the closing credits. For anyone paying attention it is very difficult not to become emotionally invested in this film’s characters and get caught up in the rush of adrenaline that it sometimes delivers.
In the end it all comes down to belief — belief in the fact that if you take a chance on Slumdog Millionaire that you are going to see one of the best movies of the year. You can believe that you will get more than just a love story, but a film that speaks volumes about real world problems such as globalization, overpopulation and poverty without being preachy in any way. You can believe that you are going to get a film that will take you on an emotional journey with characters who are very real and endearing, despite the sometimes whimsical nature of its plot. You can believe that Dev Patel is the real deal, delivering one of the year’s more memorable performances. You can believe that when you leave the theater you will feel the effect of 2008’s most uplifting film — you’ll also be humming “Jai Ho,” the tune from the closing credits. And you can believe that if this deliriously entertaining, unforgettable film were to walk away with the big award at the end of the big night, this would be one reviewer who wouldn’t be surprised at all.
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Exclusive: Dev Patel is the Slumdog Millionaire
Source: Edward Douglas
Back in August, few Americans had heard of 18-year-old Dev Patel, but that should change by year's end when they see him starring in Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, an epic underdog story set in Mumbai, India in which Patel plays Jamal Malik, a young man from the slums of Bombay, who gets onto the popular game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and knows the answers to all the questions.
Patel used to be part of the ensemble cast of the British teen drama "Skins" (which can be seen in this country on BBC America), where he caught the eye of Boyle's daughter; the next thing you know, Patel was off to Mumbai for months to shoot his first major feature film with one of England's most respected directors.
As big fans of the film, we were excited to sit down with this young actor to talk about the experience making his first Bollywood-style film with a filmmaker like Danny Boyle no less... but only after Dev turned his own handheld camera on us to ask what we thought of the movie for his own blog. (No, we have no idea if our response was usable.)
ComingSoon.net: I spoke with Danny back in Toronto and he mentioned that his daughter suggested you for the role of Jamal, which is a strange way of getting cast for a movie. Did he just call you or your agent or what was the process?
Dev Patel: Yeah, I was doing this show called "Skins" in London, and I think they were having trouble finding the lead guy, and as Danny always puts it, I think they were too buff out in India, so he couldn't find the right dude. His daughter was watching "Skins" and I think she said, "Why don't you give this guy a go?" and then the casting director, Gail Stevens, gave me a call and then I went on tape and here I am today really.
CS: Did he send you a script or sides of just some of your scenes?
Patel: I actually just had sides at the start, and yeah, I just had a small scene which is not in there anymore, when he's having an argument with his brother about destiny and stuff like that. Yeah, it was quite shocking. I remember reading it and thinking a 17-year-old guy is talking about soulmates and destiny, and I was like, "God, do kids our age really talk about that?" But yeah, once you get the whole script, it all makes sense.
CS: You didn't go and read the book and try and find out more about your character?
Patel: No, I didn't, because the book's a lot different than the script. If you read it, the book, each individual chapter could be taken out of context and put as its own film. There isn't anything fluid throughout it really, but from the book, we do use the whole "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" thing as a skeleton to provide the flashbacks, but the thing is the love story. Simon Beaufoy has done an amazing job interweaving this love story into it, that just ties it all together and gives it that depth really.
CS: Was Danny already in India doing all of his casting there when he found you?
Patel: He was. I think I came into it quite late actually, and yeah, they'd been looking out in L.A. and India, and I went on tape, because he was out promoting "Sunshine" as well, so they just put me on tape. Then, from there, on the second audition, I think they liked me and then I was straight with Danny doing it, and I had a few more auditions after that until they told me I got the role.
CS: What was the first stuff you shot for the movie? Did you do all the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" stuff first?
Patel: No, that was actually right near the end, that was probably the last stuff we did. I mean, the hardest thing about doing this role was it wasn't in a chronological order. It's so complicated as it is, because everything is based on flashbacks and I have to garner this emotion from a past event that's really shocked his life. We were jumping all over the place, but honestly, it was great having Danny to set the scene, it was good yeah.
CS: Did you get to watch any of what he'd shot with the younger kids?
Patel: I did actually, I did get to watch and when we watched it, we were like, "Wow! We've got to raise our game because these kids are amazing." They're great little actors, and they don't even know the extent of what they're doing. They're playing in between takes and things like that and than all of a sudden, everyone's like "Ready?" and they'll just switch into serious mode, quickly smash out their lines to perfection, and then get back to playing again. We were just in awe of these little kids because we were working so hard, writing notes and things like that, but they're great kids.
CS: Were you on set at all while they were there shooting?
Patel: We were, yeah? I was there a lot and in the rehearsal process, we saw these kids doing rehearsals and there needed to be that continuity between us, so hopefully one of us doesn't stick out like sore thumbs.
CS: Did you know Danny's work beforehand?
Patel: Yeah, of course. This is Danny Boyle we're talking about in London, and yeah, I'd seen most of his films already, but I decided to get all the DVDs so I could see the director's commentary on most of them. See what he's like and stuff like that, because I'd only met him in auditions and I really wanted to have a feel of how he'd direct me, so I watched these.
CS: I'd think that you could see how good he is with kids from watching "Millions."
Patel: He is, he's great. He's a great actor's director, especially on a set in Mumbai where everything's so chaotic and it's so easy to get lost in it all and get stressed out. When he's talking to you, he has a wicked way of just engaging you, and you forget about everything and just get into that role, into character for that scene.
CS: Had you ever been to Mumbai before or were you familiar at all with the movie scene there?
Patel: No, I'd been to India but not Mumbai, and that was a very young age, so yeah, this was quite new to me.
CS: What was that experience like? There are a lot of British actors who do go back and forth a lot and work in Bollywood. What was your first experience in that kind of setting vs. doing a TV show for so long?
Patel: It was good for me actually, because I was away from home and I was just immersed in Mumbai. I mean, I was playing this character and I was there, so I had no other distractions. I could sleep and breathe this character. I was there with the people, the culture, everyone speaking Hindi around me. You really get into the role, which really helped.
CS: What was your relationship with the actor playing your brother? When you did your scenes with him, you already had all this backstory, so did you get a chance to spend time with him to establish that connection?
Patel: Yeah, he was a great guy, his name is Madhur Mittal, and we spent a lot of time together. I actually met him before I met Freida, the girl that plays Latika. I went to his house and met his family and actually stayed the night in his house and then he took me out to all these places I wouldn't be allowed to go. He took me to all these snooker clubs and meeting all his friends and we went out to watch films. Sometimes, it would be a bit rough and tumble, but it was great, because I got to see a part of Mumbai that I wouldn't be able to see otherwise, being in an air-conditioned car or something like that, you know what I mean? So it was great for the character and he's a great guy. I remember he took me to watch this film called "Chak de Indias" which is a big hit out in India, a Bollywood film, and it was crazy. I was sitting in a cinema in India with him and everyone was... It's weird, it's like going to watch theater where everyone's so involved in it and like when they don't like something, they'll start throwing popcorn at the screens, this was in the cinema, and then a massive fight broke out behind us, on the other rows, and I was the only one affected by this, two big men having a fight behind us, rowing with each other in Hindi, and everyone else is just watching the film like nothing had happened. It was crazy.
CS: Have they shown "Slumdog Millionaire" there yet?
Patel: No, the first time I saw it was at Toronto.
CS: I'll be curious to know how this movie will go over there with those kinds of audiences.
Patel: Yeah, I know, 'cause they're the real deal. They'll know if there's a fake, right?
CS: Were you able to connect easily with Madhur even though you came from different backgrounds?
Patel: I mean, Danny's cast him pretty well, but me and Madhur are quite different people He's very loud, but we got along really well, and on set, he's a very good actor. We spent a lot of time talking, and he's a really good friend now to me. Just on set we'd talk with each other and really got into it, really got into that zone. Spending a lot of time with him off-set really helped I think.
CS: What about Freida? Did you get time to rehearse with her before doing your scenes?
Patel: Of course. Me, him and Freida were like the Three Musketeers. Me being out of London, they took me around everywhere and showing me some of Mumbai. There was a lot of downtime obviously, so we were hanging around together a lot of the time. The characters we're playing, they're so intimate with each other, there's love beyond the greatest bounds when he's trying to find this girl, and there's really, really strong brotherly love. I mean, they've lost each other for ages, but then there's that whole story about his brother being tainted, he gets into gangs and things like that. It's a real strong story, so we had to get to know each other real well to garner some sort of emotions at that level.
CS: Not being from Mumbai, were you able to relate to Jamal's journey at all?
Patel: Of course, I think everybody can relate to that. I mean, everyone's drawn to that whole underdog story I think, and he's just a great character, his rise through adversity. He's going to do anything to get this girl. He gets sh*t from everyone, he's tortured, he's interrogated, but he's got a strong sense of destiny, and he'll move mountains to get to her, literally if he has to. To get to her, he's literally one-track minded, that is his aim in life, his mission, and it's a brilliant story. For him, 20 million rupees isn't the prize, it's the girl. For a boy coming from the slums, it's even more awesome. Where a lot of people in that situation are, money is a big dream for them, but that's not his dream.
CS: I was thinking more of relating to that extreme situation of coming from the slums and such extreme poverty and that unique experience. Do you have to suspend disbelief when playing him or do you have to believe that this can happen?
Patel: Yeah, you do. I mean, it does keep you on the edge of your seat for a bit, and of course it does, and you just want to root for him when you watch it, I think. In the end, we are embracing that sort of Bollywood film, that sort of escapism. So there is that sort of dreamy environment. I mean, it is pretty out there, a kid from the slums winning "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" but if you come from Mumbai and you live in the slums or wherever, which is a large population, you don't want to watch things that remind you of the lack of water you have or what a bad situation you're in. You want to be escorted away into a land of people who are madly in love, heroes and heroines, dancing in mountains.
CS: Is "Millionaire" really as popular there as we see in the movie?
Patel: Yeah, yeah, the guy who hosts it is called Amitabh Bachchan, and he's like a mega-star there, he's massive. Anil Kapoor (the host of the show in the movie) is massive as well, he's a big superstar over there.
CS: What is it like working with actors like him and Irrfan Khan, who are just so huge and popular there.
Patel: He's massive, and they've got that great chemistry with the camera. They've been around the camera for so long and done so may films, it's great to watch. Going into the scenes, they really set the scene, the atmosphere in the room. I just went along with the flow really, we were just in their hands. Irrfan especially, there's a lot of improvisation and things like that and he's great, such a subtle actor, and it was great to work with people like him.
CS: How many days were you shooting all the "Millionaire" stuff on that set?
Patel: I think it was two weeks or so, and that was good because we did that in chronological order, which made it easier. I went on there the first day with all these extras on set, and I was really nervous. The whole experience of all these extras on set and I don't know what they're saying and they're all staring at me, and if I mess up, they're all going to be watching.
CS: But that was probably good for your performance.
Patel: Yeah, a good thing, and then I started to warm as we got along with it, yeah.
CS: Did Danny try to shoot entire scenes of the "Millionaire" thing like they would do the show or did he just break it up and do each person separately?
Patel: We'd done it by questions but we used so many different cameras, we'd done like long chunks of it and things like that.
CS: I know you're done with "Skins" so what else do you have coming up?
Patel: "Skins" is finished, they've got a new cast in that, and I had to leave that anyway to do "Slumdog" so it was good timing for me, really, but yeah, I'm out looking now.
CS: What are you looking for? More television stuff at all? Or going to Hollywood on the love this movie is getting?
Patel: I don't really know. I just think getting to work with some great actors and get some experience or just some good roles that interest me I think.
CS: Are there any specific genres you like?
Patel: Anything really... honestly. I'm really open-minded and I like to try everything and be as versatile as I can.
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Director Talk:-
Since his debut with Shallow Grave in 1995, British director Danny Boyle has always delivered movies that have both challenged and thrilled diehard movielovers, whether it was his breakthrough second film Trainspotting about Scottish junkies, the trend-setting apocalyptic thriller 28 Days Later or some of his lesser-known, but equally captivating work like Millions and Sunshine.
Boyle traveled to Mumbai, India to make his latest movie Slumdog Millionaire, a rich epic tale loosely based on stories in Vikas Swarup's novel "Q & A." Specifically, it's about the life of Jamal Malik, a young man from the slums of Mumbai who has a chance to change his destiny when he becomes a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" That's the simplified version of a much more expansive tale of undying young love, sibling rivalry and how the transformation of Bombay into Mumbai affects them. Opening with the older Jamal, played by British actor Dev Patel ("Skins"), being interrogated by two tough Mombai policemen (Irrfan Khan and Saurabh Shukla), juxtaposed with his appearance on the popular game show, the film then flashes back to Jamal's life growing up in the slums of Bombay without a pot to piss in, meeting Latika, a young orphaned girl who Jamal would travel across India trying to find once they're separated, and blindly following his ambitious older brother Salim, until Latika comes between them.
It's a wonderful film, already hailed by many as the best of the year--this writer agrees with that sentiment--after playing at Telluride and the Toronto Film Festival. ComingSoon.net had a chance to catch up with Boyle and meet the film's screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) towards the end of the latter, where we sat down for a delightful early morning conversation about the film over tea.
ComingSoon.net: Nice to see you again. I almost saw your movie a second time here at the festival, but I didn't want to get greedy.
Danny Boyle: Yeah, cool. Very good. So you enjoyed it?
CS: Yeah, yeah, I did, and I saw you downstairs after the first press screening. Were you just there to see what the vibe from the press was like?
Boyle: It's been amazing actually. Isn't it?
Simon Beaufoy: Yeah, it was my first time in front of an audience the other night. It was just tremendous. (The premiere) was the first time I'd seen it with a proper audience.
Boyle: It's weird. We were talking about this. There's a line, which in a million years we wouldn't have said was funny, and every single audience has roared laughing at it. It's the most bizarre thing.
CS: Which line was that?
Beaufoy: The inspector says at one point to Jamal, "This is all bizarrely plausible."
Boyle: Right, and everyone wakes up from this little dream that they're in, going "Oh, come ON!"
CS: How did the two of you first find this material? Did you know each other beforehand?
Boyle: No.
Beaufoy: No, we never met before. Film Four in Britain optioned the rights to this strange book by VIkas Swarup called "Q & A" which had this fantastic premise of a slum kid who goes on to win the "Millionaire" show, but the book is actually a series of 12 short stories really, some of which are linked, some of which aren't. One is about the Indeo-Pakistan war and it has nothing to do with the characters at all and there's no Latika in the book, there's no big love story, no big search in the book, so I kind of had to invent all that, go back to Mumbai and wander around and find out what's going on in the city.
CS: They came to you to pull these stories together into a script and Danny wasn't involved yet, so did you find the book on your own?
Boyle: Nope. No, in fact when they sent the script, I can't even remember, I had no idea it was even based on a book I don't think. I think my agent foolishly said, "It's about 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'" and that made me think I don't really want to... I couldn't be bothered with that, because you think... It's very difficult to say this now when you spent so much time on it together, but the only reason I read it was because of (Simon's) name, because I knew his name, I knew his work, and I thought out of respect, I should read it really. Then I could ring him up or write him a note saying it wasn't really my cup of tea. You do feel that obligation sometimes when you get a script of someone who is a decent writer, you think you should read it. After page 20, or something like that, I knew I was going to make it and that's the best way to make a decision. You have no common sense, go to sleep... amnesia sets in about the problems of filmmaking, you never think about any of that, you just think, "Okay, yeah, I'll do this, it's fantastic!" (chuckles) and I was in. Then I read the book, and I didn't particularly like the book. I think if I had read the book first, I would have thought there was no way that could be a film. So it's a tribute to Simon. That was the experience and that is what I wanted. When you came out of the cinema, I wanted you to feel what I felt when I read that script the first time, which was this exhilaration of seeing this insight into this brutal, amazing, joyful story of this underdog who comes out of nowhere and actually just with guts and luck and vision and a plan, he suddenly makes it.
CS: It's even more than that, because you see this whole evolution of Bombay into Mumbai, all of this stuff. Was a lot of that structure in Simon's screenplay or was that something you worked out or changed as you were editing?
Beaufoy: Most of it was there in the screenplay, but the editing was really complex, wasn't it? It was almost like squeezing three separate films into one. You've got a film about a man in a police station explaining his life story, then you have this whole game show, and it was a lot of shifting around of emphasis and shortening of some questions. One question has been missed out altogether, and some questions go really fast and there's more time to linger on the backstory.
Boyle: It was structurally very tricky. You have to be careful not to let the show over-dominate, because it is a drug, that show, which is why it's so successful and it takes over everything. You know what it's like? You start watching it, you can't stop watching it, and it's weirdly effective in the film of course. It starts to creep in and take over the whole film, so to discipline that was quite... to kind of cut it back, so you didn't feel like you were watching a film about "You Ought to be a Millionaire" (sic)
Beaufoy: It's tricky, because I never think money is a very good motivator in a film; it's not a very big emotional motivator for me, so going to see a film about a slum kid who drives off in a Bentley at the end, am I really emotionally with that guy, I say, "Not really." That was always my fear about the whole project. This show is all about getting rich, and actually, I didn't want to make a film about someone getting rich. I don't leave the cinema filled with joy at somebody walking out with 20 million rupees.
CS: The fact that this film is so immersed in Indian culture, was working outside your comfort zone something that appealed to both of you as far as doing this? Did you end up having to immerse yourself into that culture to understand it?
Beaufoy: For me, as a writer who comes from quite a naturalistic tradition, British screenwriting is quite delicate, quite small, and rarified in a way. Going to India, it's completely inappropriate to write naturalistic, small films. You look like an idiot, the stories come at you like a train, and you have to write big and be operatic and embrace the fact that you've got comedy and tragedy sitting right next to each other. In Britain, it would be inappropriate, and in India, it's totally appropriate, isn't it?
Boyle: Completely natural at both extremes, absolutely amazing. It was so vivacious to work there, because storytelling is why people say it's Dickensian, because he's a vivacious storyteller, isn't he? And it's like that in all respects, even in the music. The music in the movies is like right up front, not hidden, working away on you psychologically, working away on you, no it's HERE! I always wanted to mix music like that. In a mix, I'm always trying to push a mix forward, because I love that sense of music being part of life and there it's completely a natural thing.
CS: Did you try to spend some time in India beforehand to get a feel for the culture and to figure out how you were going to shoot there considering you'd never shot there before?
Boyle: We had a couple of logistic trips, working out how to do it, and you're picking up stuff the whole time, and then the biggest thing me was we did this camera test, and like the cinematographer wanted to shoot on 35, 'cause any cinematographer, given the prospect of shooting in India, wants to shoot on 35, it's like a classical, here's your chance to prove yourself as a great cinematographer. We did the tests, and I hated them, absolutely hated them, because they were classical. There, look at all those colors, look, look at all that poverty, Ohhhh... I hated it. We came up with this digital system instead. I thought the only way we were going to convince people that it's a truthful movie--because we're a bunch of white guys that don't belong there, or visitors in fact, however long you stay--was to just throw ourselves in it, film it from inside the main character and that was what we tried to do. You don't get a chance to go "Woah! Look!" It wasn't like a pictorial coffee table experience of India, I didn't want it to be that. You trust the people that you work with, you pick good people. We had this amazing woman who was the casting director originally and then she worked with us every day on the film, so we made her co-director, and we had this other guy, who was equally important to me, the first assistant director, Raj Acharya, and he was key for me, and another guy, he was the sound guy ironically. The sync sound in India is forget it. This guy is a loony and he tries to get it, and he was called Resul Pookutty and those three people were like my touchstones. All the things you do to make a film at home that you don't need to ask people about, it's automatic, you have to check with someone there. What sort of car would he drive? What sort of cigarettes would he smoke? Behavior, reference, just the tiniest things you can get wrong.
CS: When you were writing this, did you think that any director could actually make it? The fact that you have three Indian characters of different ages, finding the cast and the locations...
Beaufoy: (To Boyle) I remember when you said it, you said "This is kind of impossible to do properly," that was one of the first things you said, because it was a ridiculous casting challenge. Everything about it seemed impossible to do, and that was what was kind of wonderful about it. It was just one of those films where you just had to run at it and go, "Let's make every decision as bold as possible." I never thought, "Let's be cautious and maybe just make it two age groups or anything." I just went for the biggest canvas possible. It's not from any conscious decision, it's just going to that place.
Boyle: Yeah, I actually like that.
Beaufoy: It makes you make very bold decisions. Really, it's so liberating for me as a writer. I'm used to being very careful, very scared of anything approaching melodrama, and I went there, and it's a ridiculously romantic story, knowing there's no sense to it, none of all that stuff that I think has crept into my work and a lot of writers I know.
CS: But also when you're writing a screenplay, you have to think that someone has to be able to make the movie for a reasonable budget, and someone has to get the money to make the movie.
Beaufoy: These are all very sensible questions, and I didn't use any sense at all. I didn't think about any of this.
Boyle: That's the common sense amnesia thing. It just goes out the window, you think, "Go on, go for it!"
Beaufoy: It really does.
Boyle: Obviously, you have to answer it at some point or as late as possible, you know? There's really a great expression: "Knock hard, life is death" (chuckles) You've got to do that in Mumbai. Life is death because it's just so f*cking noisy, you can't make any kind of impact at all, people are hitting it quite hard, you know?
CS: Now you're going into this environment where you need very specific structures and locations, so did you actually build any sets out there or did you use some of the CG stuff you've used in the past?
Boyle: We tried to do as much as possible on the streets. We built a couple of little things but not very much. Normally, Bollywood films everything in the studio and that's partly because every Bollywood film has a big star in it, and the stars would attract really, truly unmanageable crowds, whereas ours, they'd turn up, the crowds, but they'd realize to their disappointment that Salman Khan or Sharuhk Khan wasn't going to turn up or Amitabh Bachchan wasn't going to be there. Always these white guys... "Oh, okay" and then they'd drift away. No stars. No, we tried to shoot as much as possible on the streets, and that was an esthetic decision, again so that the realism we were after, and we'd make as few mistakes as possible.
CS: I was thinking for instance like the slums and the evolution of the city, and I wondered whether you knew you'd have to do some of that stuff with CG later or did you find places?
Boyle: We didn't use CG very much. We used CG for safety for the kids chasing the train. We had to put them on wires, because it's pretty scary having 7-year-olds running beside the train. You can't believe. When we got there and started doing that, it was like "Oh my God, what have we done?" Just to have them running beside a live train, it was scary.
Beaufoy: But it's a brilliant sequence; you feel scared.
Boyle: Anyway we didn't use CG for that much. It's quite a small CG budget really.
CS: Simon, did you actually go there while they were shooting?
Beaufoy: For the beginning of it, I was there, but not for the whole of the shoot.
CS: So did you just see the movie for the first time recently?
Beaufoy: No, Danny's been incredibly collaborative on this. I saw just about every cut and that's brilliant.
Boyle: I like to do a cut and then you show it to your collaborators really, which is your writer and your producer, and then you're kind of bouncing off each other. It's very different watching a film when there's somebody else in the room, rather than just and the editor watching it.
Beaufoy: As a writer, I've never been invited to the sound mix before; that's how collaborative Danny is.
Boyle: It's so he gets blamed as well, that's it.
CS: Did you end up having to rewrite some parts after Danny came back from India and needed to shoot some things to make the editing work?
Beaufoy: There was a little bit of reshooting, wasn't there?
Boyle: Yeah, we did some pick-ups.
Beaufoy: A terrible mistake by me, I wrote a very emotional scene in the kitchen for Latika, and in my script, she had big dark glasses on, because she had a black eye, and I thought, "How clever is that? She'll take the glasses off and you'll see the black eye." Really stupid. She might as well have been wearing a motorcycle helmet.
Boyle: The big emotional scene, so that had to be reshot.
CS: How about casting the three kids, and the three different ages? I know Dev has been doing stuff in England, but what about the younger versions of all the characters? What was the process? Did you just work with the casting director?
Boyle: The biggest problem was obviously, that you had to delay, because there were nine, you couldn't commit to someone until you got an idea that you'd have two other people who could lead to them, or that could plausibly be them as well. So we auditioned a lot of people and we kept a lot of people waiting. We couldn't find his character in Mumbai, that was the only thing. Everybody else was from Mumbai, but the young guys there, they were good actors who could lead a film are all muscle-builders. If you want to be a young lead in Bollywood, you've got to look like a big hero. They were built like this, and it just felt so wrong, and then my daughter said, "You should look at this guy who's on this TV show in Britain," which she watched. It's quite a racy show called "Skins" and he plays, not a huge character, a comic character, and I thought he looked right, so we met him, and he was fantastic. That's an amazing coincidence really, the way these things happen, so that's how we found him.
CS: It's an amazing film but I'm curious how Americans might react to it. For whatever reason, American moviegoers aren't generally attracted to films about foreign places, which is an unfortunate and awful thing, but it definitely seems to be the case. You've seen this huge reaction with people seeing the movie at festivals and critics loving it, but do you think others will give the story a chance because of its setting? How do you get this film to those people?
Boyle: It's through you. I sit in hotels for the next three or four months talking to people who can help me get it out there really, because you're the gatekeepers really of the public. I mean you are, aren't you? Especially with a film like this, that's not got a big recognizable star in it, is that they have to have somebody they can trust who can tell them, "Give it a chance." I think once you're in, hopefully it's a universal story that you get carried along with, so hopefully you guys and festivals like this can suddenly put it up on its feet and say, "You're alright, it works."
CS: That's a scary position to be in, especially considering how much I loved "Millions" and tried to get people to see that, but you never know how it'll turn out.
Boyle: I know.
Beaufoy: It's essentially a love story; it's essentially at heart a very straightforward pure simple love story, obviously with huge complications around the outside, but everybody responds to that. (To Boyle) One of the first things you said was "It's gotta be Romeo and Juliet, otherwise why bother?" (Set the bar a bit low...) But I thought that was really useful to me, because I kept thinking "Yeah, if it's not a really powerful love story, it's too confusing, it's structurally complicated, in a foreign land not many people heard of." The only thing people can kind of key into immediately is that sense of searching for someone because you love them so much.
Boyle: You can tell it has to be extreme. Ironically what looks like a barrier to a North American audience is Mumbai, it actually gives you an extremity which actually works in movies I think. To get people's attention, there has to be an extremity of an experience that you're offering. You can see why everything is going into superhero movies or fantasy movies, because they offer an unrealistic extreme, and this is kind of a realistic extreme in a way really. That's the big advantage that Mumbai gives us as well as a barrier obviously in circumstance.
CS: If they really wanted, they could always push the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" connection, as that might get some people interested. Was the guy who hosted it, a real host from the show in India?
Boyle: No, the show when it opened in India was hosted by this guy Amitabh Bachchan, so there, they're really interesting. They don't use TV presenters. They use the biggest star in the whole of their star system to open the show, and he was an enormous hit doing it. Enormous and people were fascinated, and he was replaced a couple of years ago by the next Bollywood movie star, which is this guy Shahruk Khan, who is presenting it now, and he's the biggest star in Bollywood at the moment. The guy we've got, Anil Kapoor, in the '90s, he was the heir apparent to Amitabh Bachchan, so he's a huge star, but it allows us freedom, because he's not the real presenter, but in Indian terms, it's completely realistic that somebody like him would present the show. They're not like here or in the UK. It would be like Tom Cruise presenting in America.
Beaufoy: Yeah, they have 90 million people tuning in every week.
CS: Have you had a chance to play the movie for anyone in India yet?
Boyle: Not there, but we played it to a Hindu speaking audience in London, because there's a Hindi film every week in the Top 10 in the UK, they have a very loyal audience. We were very worried about it because there's a lot of swearing and they hate it, and the Hindi swear words are very, very colorful. I mean, I was shocked when some of them were translated, really shocked, especially the word "Balsalika," never get that translated in front of anybody you like. Anyway, but the Hindi audience loved it, they were mad for it, they all laughed and found it funny, so we were very fortunate so far.
CS: Who ended up translating it into Hindi for the actors?
Boyle: Loveleen translated it, she was the co-director. The thing in this process is that what you read on the screen is (Simon's) script; what they say is her version of his lines, because you can't translate Simon's lines to a 7-year-old in Hindi. She slang-ified it into Hindi for them. An example of it is I have a very simple line where he says, "I'm hungry." Now in Hindi, a slum kid would say "I've got rats running round my tummy." That's the way they say "I'm hungry" so we had this really interesting process where what they say isn't exactly what you read but it means it.
CS: That might be part of why the movie is so realistic to the culture but still translates well to Western audiences.
Boyle: Yeah, that was always the trick really is not make it a subtitled movie even though you've got to use them at some point, but it doesn't feel like a subtitled movie. It feels like an immediate experience. You're not reading it, you're kind of feeling it and hearing it, rather than reading it.
CS: Do you have any idea what you might do next? I remember when we spoke for "Sunshine," your response was "Oh, I'm going to India to make a movie." I don't think we had any idea you'd come back with this.
Boyle: I don't know. I'm kind of involved in--I have no idea if it's going to happen--an animated film at the moment, which Frank Cottrell Boyce (who wrote "Millions") adapted this Terry Pratchett book called "Truckers," which we're meant to be doing at DreamWorks, but whether it's going to happen or not is so complicated.
CS: I've talked to a lot of directors who do animated movies and when it comes to doing CG, you're really relying more on the animators than anyone else.
Boyle: It's a weird different discipline, it's very strange. You're more of a kind of ringmaster, organizing this huge army of illustrators who can change the movie. It's really weird. They often do scripts and they have no gags in them at all and yet you see the finished film and it's full of kind of funny gags, and they say that it's not in the script, that all comes through the process of the animators. It's like learning the skill of letting certain ones of them off their leash to do the gags.
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I can still remember the excitement in the TV industry when the Philbin-hosted American edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire debuted on ABC (i.e. way before they ran the show into the ground with a mind-numbing 4x-per-week airing schedule). Like many game shows, Millionaire was able to harvest some great drama out of a simple premise: A contestant answered questions of increasing difficulty with a chance at winning a million dollars if he got them all correct (while at any time still retaining the option to walk away with a sizable chunk of the money he’d already won). But unlike punishingly difficult quiz shows like Jeopardy or Twenty One, the questions usually didn’t center around obscure historical minutiae or nuclear physics; they were questions the viewers at home could answer too. As an audience, we were allowed to dream what we would do if we were sitting in that chair under those hot lights. We could imagine that, even with the limited knowledge and experience that we had, we always had the chance to strike gold. It’s no surprise, then, that Slumdog Millionaire is able use that game show to generate some engrossing drama of its own.
It’s the biggest night of Jamal Malik’s (Dev Patel) life. Against all odds, Jamal, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai, has correctly answered almost every single question on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Only one final question stands between him and the ultimate jackpot. But how did a poor kid with very little education ever make it this far? Jamal is quickly whisked away to a local police station for torturing and questioning, where accusations of cheating hang palpably in the air. To prove himself, Jamal must explain how he learned every single one of the answers, as well as all the insane (mis)fortunes of his life that have led him to this point. For me to reveal any more plot details than this would be to spoil the constant stream of surprises this movie will throw your way.
Some movies don’t just tell you a story; they create worlds that you’re allowed the privilege of inhabiting for a few fleeting hours before leaving the theater feeling exhilarated and more alive than when you went in. Slumdog Millionaire is one of those films. Director Danny Boyle’s career has taken him from the lives of British heroin addicts to the adventures of an international crew of Earth-saving astronauts. When I sat down with Boyle to talk about his favorite movies awhile back, I also asked him about how his filmography constantly moves from genre to genre. His response was as follows:
I have this theory that your first film is always your best film…because, although you obviously get better as a filmmaker technically, you learn more, you learn skills, and stuff like that. But you’re never quite in a place like that again, where you don’t know what you’re doing. If you can cope with the panic that that can cause amongst the crew, if you can deal with that and that doesn’t matter, it’s a wonderful place to be to tell stories, because you have no techniques that you’re gonna use. You just have the story, and you have to tell it as freshly as you can. I love that, and I think that everything I’ve tried to do after that is I’ve tried to get back to that situation of innocence. You can never quite be innocent again, you know? The cherry’s gone, but you can try and get back there by working in fields you’ve never worked in before.
In many ways, this real-life filmmaking notion of exploration and discovery is what Slumdog Millionaire is all about. The movie takes us through a journey of discovery, a non-stop thrill ride of rough-and-tumble street life in India. As Jamal and his brother learn about the harsh realities of victimization at the hands of poverty and gangs, we are there with them, experiencing the wonders and the horrors of the world they live in. The cinematography is stunningly gorgeous, a seamless blend of breathtaking establishing shots and you-are-there camera angles that convincingly make the film version of India into the living, breathing, world that it is in reality. And the A.R. Rahman-scored music (including the Bollywood-style dance number at the end) infuse the proceedings with an exoticism and an excitement that make the hopefully-inevitable soundtrack an irresistible purchase.
Despite all the dazzling filmmaking on display here, at its core, the movie is a love story between Jamal and his childhood friend, Latika (played by the lovely Freida Pinto). It is a love whose very existence seems almost implausible. But like all good fairy tales, it is the type of love that invokes the simplicity of the human condition, that speaks to our undying and irrational desire to be with that special someone, and that reflects on the tragedy of possibly losing them forever.
There are a few nits I could pick with some story, filmmaking, or acting elements, but I feel that for me to bring them up would almost cheapen my sentiments of what an amazing and must-see film this is. So I won’t.
Slumdog Millionaire is my favorite film of the year. It has been a tremendous year for movies, with critically acclaimed masterpieces and box office juggernauts all occupying spaces in the popular consciousness. Yet many of these works aren’t terribly uplifting. Films like Let The Right One In, The Wrestler, Quantum of Solace, and The Dark Knight, while great films in their own right (Solace excluded), all prominently feature brooding leads, depressing themes, and/or endings that make you question the state of humanity in the world. Slumdog Millionaire dares you to believe that, in a world ravaged by poverty and violence, the power of love and the audacity of hope can still hold sway. Cinematically, it proves that you can take tired clichés, such as love-at-first-sight and rags-to-riches, and make them fresh and thrilling. But perhaps even more significantly, it manages to make Who Wants To Be a Millionaire exciting again.
/Film Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Discuss: What did you think of Slumdog Millionaire? Was it a brilliant fairy tale? Or a cold, calculated piece of commercial fluff?
Movie Review: Ghajini; Star Cast: Aamir Khan, Asin, Jiah Khan, Pradeep Rawat, Khalid Siddiqui and others; Director: A.R. Murugadoss; Rating: ****
Review: Ghajini; Star Cast: Aamir Khan, introducing Asin, Jiah Ali Khan and Pradeep Rawat; Director: A.R. Murugadoss; Rating: 3.5 out of 5* - Not meant for the faint hearted
"We are very pleased that the film is finally releasing now and in fact, we are sitting in PVR cinemas where the press show has just finished and the second is about to start. Couple of days back, the entire cast and the crew were tensed whether the film would release or not but we are glad to announce that Ghajini is finally releasing across cinemas today". These were the words coming out from Aamir Khan immediately after the first press screening of Ghajini got over at the PVR cinema in Juhu on Wednesday, December 24 at around 7.30pm. Accompanying him was director A.R. Murugadoss too. Our correspondent was present during the surprise visit of perfectionist Khan. We get you some interesting tit bits by the actor as the media quiz him on the film, his co-star Asin, his X-mas celebrations, his New Year resolutions and much more.
