Its the season for movie reviews. Past two days, every blog update in google reader is invariably a movie review. Even when I asked someone (yes, you know who you are) a simple question on the lines of 'what's up?' - I got a full 500 word review in reply. So I thought I would write one myself. Here goes...
An american friend of my uncle's had seen it already. 'Its such a sad movie', she said. 'I was crying all the time.' But no, Slumdog Millionaire is not a sad movie at all. Infact, if anything, its a tale of hope and joy, of picking yourself up when life has you at its lowest, of never giving up.
As Jamal recounts his life (in a British accent, but lets ignore that), its not hard to see what would make people think its a sad movie, depressing in its tone. But perhaps because we are immune to the sights of extreme poverty, conditioned to look the other way when the child-beggar knocks on our window, we can look beyond the despair to what is ultimately an optimistic tale. While the sight of kids playing cricket on the runway may tug at many heartstrings, we know that at that moment, those kids are truly happy, without a care in the world, enjoying themselves - no holds barred.
Not exactly a helpful movie review, I know, but there are 4 (maybe 5) loyal readers of this blog, one of whom has already seen it, one won't, one doesn't trust me (yes, its you again) and one who swears by my word. So me recommending it helps nobody, really. Anyway, do watch it if you have the chance. Like Andy Dufresne, Jamal Malik too crawled through shit and came out clean.
In other news, a song that I keep listening to these days.
