I have not done a movie review in a few weeks. I usually do something on movies on Friday. Lisa and I love going to the movies. We like all genres but we try to avoid movies that have pretty dark story lines or a pretty strong sense of evil or immorality. It just bothers my soul to sit through films like that. It takes a true artist to be able to tell a story well without lots of gratuitous sex, gore, shock, or tons of “F” words. Even worse is the one out of place scene that seemed to be thrown in to get the rating up or for shock value. A few years ago we left a movie and asked for our money back after attending what was advertised as a family movie, and the theater was full of kids. They managed to keep enough bad language out of it to keep it PG but it was one sexual innuendo and crude joke after another. The lady at the ticket booth said, “Yes I know, we have received a lot of complaints.”
So we are careful to check out a movie before we go to find out why it received a R rating of even the PG-13 rating that can be on a pretty crude movie that should receive an offensive R.
Last Saturday Lisa and I went to Academy Award Nominated “Slumdog Millionaire“. Slumdog is Rated R for for some violence, disturbing images and language. According to the Family Cornerin Brandon Fibbs review in Christianity Today, “The themes are graphic (poverty, torture, sexual abuse, prostitution, robbery, murder, etc.), but are rarely presented graphically. The language is moderate, and the only nudity is that of a young child. Older, discerning teenagers could find the film illuminating. Slumdog Millionaire is mostly in English, though there are large sections in Hindi, with English subtitles.
Even though the movie told the story of young orphan kids growing up in seemingly hopeless poverty stricken India, living day to day off of what they could beg, steal, or sell themselves for, the author and director managed to tell a powerful story of an evil world without nudity, with muffled violence, and milder language than he could have got away with.
I believe it is a well made film, with actors you can connect with and pull for throughout the film. I will be disappointed if it does not get the best picture nod by the Academy. The story of how the young man knew the answers to the millionaire without cheating is a well told story of wisdom that comes from being a learner as one goes through life.
This would be a great flick to see with your teens and to sit down with over coffee or ice cream later and learn more about each other by your response to the film. I think it would be an OK movie for an emotionally mature young teen if attended with his or her parents. I don’t think younger more emotionally immature children should see this film.
So I give it two thumbs up. Below is some of Brandon Fibbs review and the link to the article.
While it certainly contains passages of harrowing bleakness, Boyle does not wait until the very end to parcel out hope. It flits into view throughout, buoyant and luminous. It threads its way though the narrative, never letting the viewer forget that it is there. And when it decides to show itself entire, its revelation can only be encompassed in the jubilant, phantasmagoric expression that is Bollywood.
Jamal (played by Dev Patel as a young man and, as with the other leads, two other actors at various stages of childhood) is a product of squalor, of homes built on and out of the refuse discarded from the rest of society. When Jamal’s mother is murdered during an anti-Muslim raid, he and older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) are forced to fend for themselves.
They survive on hook, crook and sheer resourcefulness, taking in another orphan teen girl, Latika (Freida Pinto), with whom Jamal is instantly smitten. Eventually they are picked up by a Fagin-esque hustler who runs a sort of criminal orphanage. Each day the lost boys and girls beg for money in the city to bring back to their “benefactor.” When Salim discovers the danger they are in, he and Jamal flee, leaving Latika behind.
Desperate to reconnect with Latika, Jamal insists they return to Mumbai and begin searching for her. Though the brothers eventually find her in the most hopeless of situations, one in which she is bought and sold like so much chattel, Jamal never loses hope that they will one day be together again.
Throughout life’s challenges, Jamal is astute and observant, soaking in his surroundings. He is able to instinctively draw from this deep reservoir when it matters most—appearing on the garish game show, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Each question posed to him correlates to experiences in his past, though both the show’s host (Anil Kapoor) and the police officer (Irfan Khan) who must decide his fate cannot comprehend how such knowledge is possible. Nor can they, or the galvanized nation which watches each night, figure out why a young man who seems to care nothing about the prize money is so intent on winning it all.
Slumdog Millionaire flies on the wings of an effervescent energy, bursts with dazzling color, and is set to the pulse-pounding music of Indian superstar A.R. Rahman.
e-Royal 