2008 brought us several blockbuster movies. Immediately the three comic book titans and Pixar’s latest achievement come into mind. And while WALL-E was perhaps Pixar’s greatest achievement to date and The Dark Knight was a box office juggernaut, Danny Boyle’s late comer, Slumdog Millionaire, cannot be overlooked.
Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal Malik, a young chaiwalla (tea servant) in a Mumbai call center who becomes a contestant on the Indian edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. Jamal’s life struggle growing up in the slums of Santa Cruz (the area of Mumbai east of Juhu, around the west side of the International Airport) as a poor Muslim in a Hindu world gives him all the answers he needs to succeed on the show. The film is a great primer into the seamy underworld of India and the cultural clashes existent in the country of over a billion people, particularly in Bombay, a small city which crams over 18 million people in its varied neighborhoods and hutments (slums).
Through a seamless string of the moving present and flashbacks of the past, we grow up with Jamal, his brother Salim, and their third musketeer Latika. The three are orphaned by the cruel realities of Indian Slum life. Though separated by twists of fate, Jamal never gives up on his friend Latika. As Jamal and his brother Salim grow and travel to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal not to be confused with the Taj Mahal Hotel of recent note) and back, Latika grows into a beautiful young woman. When they are reunited in Mumbai, fate twists again and Salim charges head long into a life of organized crime pulling Latika with him. As Jamal pursues his fledgling career as a chaiwalla in a call center, he is given the opportunity of a lifetime on a television game show. The trials of his life and destiny carry us to the end of the film; a predictable ending that in no way diminishes how spectacular it is.
The film drives us through a spectacular and dizzying array of what slum life is in the world’s fifth most densely populated city is like. We see laid bare to all the stratification of Indian society. We are led to understand how life has a different meaning and a different value in a place where souls are said to be recycled throughout the ages. Those of us who have been there and seen it firsthand are drawn down the path of memory to a place we will never forget. Those who have never been to India are given a glimpse into the raw humanity that exists on the subcontinent. This is a film that may very possibly change your life forever.
Is Slumdog Millionaire the best movie of 2008? I cannot say that; for it depends on what you look for in a film. Is Slumdog Millionaire the best movie of its kind in 2008? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. For all the rupees in the world, yes.