Andrea Hopkins February 17, 2009

Dudes, you are so not getting the point of the ending! It is a convention of the genre. You are not supposed to find it realistic. You don't criticize Twelfth Night or A Winter's Tale for having wildly implausible happy endings, so why does it bug you in a movie?!

Russell George February 5, 2009

It might have been because I had indigestion from rushed pub food beforehand, but the ‘feel-good film of the decade’ left me cold. I agree with an earlier reviewer that there are 2 parts to this. The first is interesting, fast-paced and sets you up for . . . a load of sentimental mush. A plot line with more holes than a First Great Western timetable, and a pathological attempt to fit as many clichés as possible into the last hour, the film becomes a teen movie rather than a genuine glimpse at modern India. I was groaning at the predictability of it all by the end. Frankly, there is more tension in the average advert.

Glenn Watson January 12, 2009

British director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) strikes gold with Slumdog Millionaire – an inspiring story of life, love and a famous TV show. Vibrantly filmed in the slums of Mumbai, it’s winning awards around the world. Danny sits in the hot seat and answers Daily Info’s questions…

How did you get involved in Slumdog Millionaire?
My agent sent me a script and said It’s about Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I thought, who wants to make a film about that? Then I saw it was written by Simon Beaufoy who did The Full Monty and thought I’d better read it out of respect. I was gone after ten pages. I rang up the producers and went out to India. I just knew I was going to do it. You get this amnesia about the realities of making a film. It’s like they say about women and childbirth – you forget how painful it is!

It’s based on the novel, Q&A, by Vikas Swarup…
The film’s very different. It’s produced by Celador films. The guy who runs it created Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and sold the show to set up Celador. He kept a lot of goodwill - so we were able to use the theme tune, format and title of the show. We couldn’t use the Indian title as they feared it’d taint their programme.

There’s an Indian ‘co-director’ credit at the end. How major was that co-direction?
Loveleen Tandan’s a casting director (Brick Lane, Monsoon Wedding) – but I realized I was going to need her everyday, to check things, make sure we didn’t make any cultural mistakes. She was particularly involved with the kids as they didn’t speak much English. So it felt appropriate to call her the co-director.

In one scene the young Jamal jumps into a cesspit – how did you film that?
It was a real latrine – but we dropped a tank into it and filled it with peanut butter and chocolate. So actually you could lick him! It’s peoples’ imaginations that make it work. The kid was pretty cool about it.

Was it a difficult film to shoot?
It took three months to prep, three to shoot. We had a lot of local people from Bollywood. In the west, actors are out of work most of the time. In India, every actor is working on half a dozen films at the same time. So they tell you when they’re available. The Assistant Director was juggling phones to other assistant directors, booking people for a week next Thursday!

You got permission to film at the Taj Mahal though.
Everything’s vetted by the Indian authorities. You have to be creative about presenting material to them. We said, there’s a torture scene involving the police – and they said, ‘Okay, as long as no one above the rank of inspector’s involved’! But kids nicking things at the Taj Mahal? They didn’t like that at all.

What was it like working with the kids in the film?
I like having kids on set – I behave like one myself, that kind of energy. The lad who played the young Jamal is middle class and has some English. We’d thought of doing all the kids in English but soon realized how fake that would be. As soon as they started performing in Hindi it came alive. The kids who played Salim and the girl Latika are slum kids. ‘Slum’ has a pejorative sense here but it’s not like that there. They’re very poor places and do get cleared away sometimes by the council but they’re very proud, resourceful and full of industry.

What were your impressions of India?
I didn’t see much of India – mainly Mumbai. I come from Radcliffe, a small place near Bury. So to be able do a film in Mumbai is amazing. But there was no problem. They’re so busy getting on with their tiger economy that the British look a bit quaint really. You see Brits, Germans and Americans banging on desks at the airport, saying ‘This is no way to run an airport!’ But you’ve got to go with it – and if you do, it’s a really generous place. You can’t organize it. It’s like the sea – it changes all the time.

The film is beautifully photographed.
We didn’t look for beauty, we just tried to film what we saw. We shot in the slums whereas Bollywood films tend to go into studios, away from it. We didn’t dress things, just shot it as it was.

You add a great dance sequence over the end credits – why?
You can’t live and work in Mumbai and not dance – it’s so natural. We originally had 5000 dancers – but that got cut to just fifty good ones at the front! We shot it over three nights at Mumbai’s famous railway station – it’s only available between 2am and 3am. Dev didn’t dance really and felt like he was in his pyjamas! But A R Rahman, our musician, is a serious superstar in India – he’s Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise and Bruce Springsteen rolled into one.

You’ve no plans to do a musical then?
I did a stage show at the RSC with a couple of numbers in it! It’s a dream to do it. An original musical is the most difficult thing to do. So it was fantastic to just let loose in Slumdog! We thought of putting the dance sequence in the middle of the film but that really wouldn’t have worked.

It’s getting good reviews round the world. Did you wonder how it would play to different countries?
I thought it’d work here because of the connection with the show. And Dev Patel was in Channel 4’s Skins. But the Americans – you underestimate how tied-in they are to the underdog story. It was going to be released by Warners but they passed it to Fox Searchlight who specialize in this kind of film. They did Juno and Last King of Scotland – low budget, breakout films. They marketed Slumdog really aggressively. I’ve done lots of cities and radio stations there.

Are there any similarities between this and your most famous film, Trainspotting?
Well there’s a guy escaping down a toilet! No, you feed off each story. It’s the films people don’t like as much that you feel protective about. I’m lucky to be able to make films – getting the money to make them, working with such people. It’s not a bad job really.

Glenn Watson December 22, 2008

Exhilarating and dazzling, Slumdog Millionaire is possibly going to be the best film of 2009. And perhaps one of the best films ever made.

Tragic, funny, thrilling and romantic, all of life is here. Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Sunshine) directs with his customary energy. But even he excels himself. Visually stunning and sharp as a diamond, Slumdog Millionaire is a superhighway of emotional energy crammed into one breathtaking film.

Get past the quirky title and your natural wariness of the premise and give this a go. Director Danny Boyle did, originally put off by the pitch. Odds on for a slew of awards, it’s already won a few, even if the Oscar itself proves elusive.

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel, TV’s Skins) comes from the Mumbai slums. And he's only one question away from winning millions of rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?. But the producers can't believe he hasn’t cheated. Arrested, Jamal recounts his life, telling how he came to know the answers to each question - and how his estrangement from a childhood friend led him to go on her favourite show.

Based on Vikas Swarup's bestselling novel, Q & A, Slumdog Millionaire is scripted by Simon Beaufoy (Full Monty) with a career-making performance from young Brit, Dev Patel. But this is no gingoistic take on Indian life. Boyle's crew filmed in the slums and the film fizzes with the city’s culture and energy.

Indian co-direction, from Loveleen Tandan, led to the hiring of real-life slum children as the protagonists' younger selves: fantastic, sweet performances of cutting honesty. Good to know that the film company put the kids into education, in India, after shooting.

Slumdog Millionaire is at times a gangster film, a romantic comedy, a social commentary, a thriller, even a horror in one especially dark moment. But the zest for life runs throughout and it could easily be called It's a Wonderful Life. After the emotional ups and downs, stay for the end-credit sequence, which sums up the film's true heart.

Not many films feature white-knuckle TV quiz scenarios, Oliver Twist shenanigans, police brutality, dunkings into cesspits and the rhythmic beat of romantic longing. If it has a cousin, it's The Shawshank Redemption - light similarly shining out of darkness. And if there's any justice, Slumdog Millionaire will get the same cult and mainstream following.

Vividly directed, awash with colour, and blessed with a scintillating score from A R Rahman, Slumdog is affecting on many levels. Shot by Oxford-born cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Boyle's 28 Days Later), it's a vibrant experience.

But at root, it's Dev Patel and the child actors from India who bring the film alive. It won't be everyone's idea of a popcorn movie - but that's what it is: a rollercoaster ride through the human heart.

The film is clearly an attempt at bringing Bollywood to mainstream western audiences and it has the potential to work in both arenas. I found it hugely entertaining and worth watching. Some viewers here are definitely missing the point if they think there is no place for fantasy, implausibility and clichés in a film of this type. Go and watch it in Mumbai, it will all make sense.

sunil 14 Mar 2009

A refreshing change. Doesn't quite have integrity of Salaam Bombay (dir. Mira Nair) but transported me and my senses back into Mumbai. A bit cliched, contrived and hypocritical. (Why do so many films end up being over-sentimental? Is it for the same reason that my mum likes yucky sweet cakes from the supermarket?)

artfulmart 5 Mar 2009

I found this film to be tedious, cliched, overhyped, badly acted and boring. The ending is the best part. Totally sentimental rubbish. If this wins best film Oscar, well I just don't know, it says more about the nature of those awards than anything. I mean how can you compare this to some of the great films of the last few decades? It doesn't come close.

Tom 21 Feb 2009

I disagree with the over-analysed criticism (the mother was bludgeoned not burnt). Jamal goes on the show to find his girl not riches; his story is told in funny, horrific and touching episodes which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Undine 19 Jan 2009

I think that people reviewing the film here really need to watch a true Bollywood film. The ending brings together two people that have needed each other from the begining of a terrifying and lonely childhood. Jamal's clever thinking sees him on WWTBAM, which is the biggest show in India knowing that there would be the slightest chance that his soulmate may be watching. Jamal's childhood is a fight for survival and is what happens in parts of the world. Slavery of children is real. It's a great film that has an ending in true Bollywood style. Why do people want to see others fail? It's a feel good ending, and he deserves it. Go and watch it!! 10\10

Paul 17 Jan 2009

1st half - Indie film with some dark moments. 2nd half - Hollywood and trite. The ending is awful and yes, feel-good for a Hollywood audience. Danny Boyles's visual style is truly unique and for this reason and the music it's worth seeing - but only on a Orange Wednesday or something like that. If you feel sick at Hollywood-style endings, avoid!

bloodclot 16 Jan 2009

I hate to be so contrary, but this film is not only bad, it's actually morally questionable. Explicitly, it's a film about rebellion against the (Indian) class system, the exploitative capitalism which underwrites it, and an entertainment system which keeps people drugged up to the eyeballs on cynical programming like Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

But the problem is, the film actually trades in crass, money-oriented fantasy and Hollywood(/Bollywood) cliches of the crudest kind. The film's structure - each question the central character answers, winning him more and even vaster sums of money, finds its answer in some degrading experience that he has had during his life in the slums - literally puts a monetary value on his experiences. We are invited to enjoy his story of horrific violence and injustice (his mother burns to death, he sees a child blinded) in exactly the way we enjoy Who Wants to be A Millionaire - because of how much money he's making. The film IS an episode of Who Wants to be A Millionaire interwoven with a story about a boy getting a girl and the money. Everything a slum boy could want, no?

Like all of Danny Boyle's films, it has very loud music and lots of bright colours, which are designed to make us think it's a rambunctious story about rebellion and putting a finger up at the establishment, when its narrative structure, and the assumptions behind that structure, are crassly conservative and patronising.

Ben 15 Jan 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

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