jlh | slumdog millionaire

ziggy1278 sent me an email shortly after Christmas telling me to see this film with all deliberate speed, and to bring Val with me. Due to one thing and another we weren't able to accomplish this until yesterday morning. This one I am cutting for spoilers, because I want to talk about the movie at some length. The only thing I knew going into the movie was it was about some Asian Indian guy who went on Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire to get the attention of some girl. Which, you know, I think is enough.

Z and I were having one of our usual conversations about television and movies and my current disenchantment with scripted television, and he suggested that one of my problems is that I've seen most of it before—there's not much that's new. And I think that's part of it, at least in terms of twists and turns.

And yet, as I was watching Slumdog Millionaire, I sort of knew a lot of the twists that the plot would take, and maybe that was because they weren't really twists—I don't think I was supposed to be surprised. The movie carried me along from event to event, and everything felt right. I knew Samir would keep his brother from being blinded; I knew after he shot Maman that he'd become a gangster; I knew that Prem Kumar gave Jamal the wrong answer. And mostly, I knew that the last question would be who is the third musketeer, and as soon as Samir gave his phone to Latika, that Jamal would phone-a-friend for the answer. And as soon as Latika answered the phone, I didn't care about anything else, like whether or not he would win. And even as she left it behind in the car, I was tense, sure, but I had a sudden flash of Ewan, grinning at the end of Trainspotting, and realized that everything would work out.

The thing is, none of that mattered, because none of the plot came out of nowhere, or happened just so they could have enough plot for a movie, or any of that. It was fantastic and wonderful, and really fun, and sort of amazingly constructed. It struck me, mostly I think because I just saw it again the other day, as a kind of reverse of The Usual Suspects, where you have a device that allows for a narrative. And it did so incredibly well, making all the bits so compelling and allowing them to shine in their own right while also adding up to a coherent whole.

I don't mean to concentrate on the narrative here. The film has a great tone, matter-of-fact about Jamal's origins and his hard-knock life, about the economics of the New India (and how many people aren't really participating), about the tricksterism inherent in making money in the underclass. It's visually stunning, too, not just in the "people riding on top of a train" vista shots, or the period at the Taj Mahal, but also the scenes on the streets, in the call center, in the kitchen of a tiny restaurant. And the kids playing the "three musketeers" at various ages are superb, just a delight to watch. The scoring is amazing—a lot of scenes are completely silent, while others are full of noise and music.

And also, dancing at the end! In a train station!