Embracing the Melodrama Part II #111: Slumdog Millionaire (dir by Danny Boyle)

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A few thoughts on the 2008 winner for best picture, Slumdog Millionaire:

First off, whenever I think about Slumdog Millionaire, it’s impossible for me not to think of that episode of The Office where Holly and Michael do an homage to the film at the Dunder Miflin company picnic and, along with traumatizing all of the children in the audience, they also manage to accidentally reveal that half of the employees at the picnic are about to get laid off. If you need to know just how successful Slumdog Millionaire was here in the United States, just consider that it was popular enough to be parodied by Michael Scott.

Secondly, as I sit here thinking about what I want to say about the film itself, I find myself wondering if it’s really necessary for me to rehash the film’s plot. I mean, everyone’s seen this movie, right? It was released 7 years ago. It won a bunch of Oscars. It’s on cable constantly! I mean, everyone already knows what happens, right?

Oh, really? Okay, apparently there’s one person out there who has never seen Slumdog Millionaire.

For his benefit, I will reveal that Slumdog Millionaire is a British-made film about India. Jamal (Dev Patel) is an 18 year-old telemarketer, who works from India and calls people in Scotland, reading from a script and saying things like, “I really love Sean Connery.” When Jamal is selected to compete on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, he shocks both the audience and the show’s producers by getting every answer right. However, before he can answer the final question and potentially become a millionaire, he is taken into a backroom and tortured by the police, who are convinced that a “slumdog” like Jamal couldn’t possibly know all the answers. As Jamal explains how he knew each answer, the film flashes back to Jamal’s childhood in the slums of Bombay.

It’s during these flashbacks that we see how Jamal — and thousands of other poor children like him — were forced by local gangsters to work as beggars. (In one extremely harrowing scene, a child is blinded specifically so he’ll be a more sympathetic beggar.) While Jamal eventually escapes this life, his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) and his childhood love, Latika (Freida Pinto) remain under the power of a cruel crime boss (Mahesh Manjrekar).

So, that’s a relatively spoiler-free plot outline of Slumdog Millionaire. You’re welcome.

Now, personally, I love Slumdog Millionaire but a lot of people don’t. It seems to be one of those films that always gets mentioned when certain people talk about unworthy Oscar winners. Some of that is because Slumdog Millionaire won best picture the same year that The Dark Knight was not even nominated. In the eyes of some, being upset over the snubbing of The Dark Knight means that you’re also required to insanely resent every film that was not snubbed. (Looking in your direction, Sasha Stone…) But even more of the anti-Slumdog sentiment seems to come from the fact that the plot of Slumdog Millionaire revolves around an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. They feel that Slumdog Millionaire is essentially a feature-length commercial for a game show.

However, I think those people are overlooking one very important detail. In Slumdog Millionaire, How To Be A Millionaire is not portrayed in the most positive light. The whole plot of the film, after all, is that, as a result of doing well on the show, Jamal was taken into a dank room and tortured! You have to wonder what went on behind the scenes on the American version of the show.

The film’s poster refers to Slumdog Millionaire as being “the feel good film of the decade.” I don’t know if I’d agree with that description. It’s a fun film to watch because Danny Boyle is one of those hyperactive directors who can make anything fun. But, at the same time, Slumdog Millionaire is a pretty dark film. Happy ending or not, the majority of the film is about children living in extreme poverty and being exploited by rich sadists.

For those who would complain that Slumdog Millionaire gets a bit too melodramatic for its own good — well, can you ever really be too melodramatic? Along with everything else, Boyle meant for Slumdog Millionaire to serve as an homage to the famously melodramatic cinematic conventions of Bollywood and he largely succeeds.

And, of course, there’s the final dance number!

Seriously, how can you note love that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNk2pG7agYE

Scenes That I Love: “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since February is Oscar month, I figured why not start things off with one of my favorite dance scenes of all time? When Danny Boyle won his Oscar for directing Slumdog Millionaire (which, of course, was also named the best picture of 2008), he specifically thanked choreographer Longinus Fernandes for creating the “Jai Ho” dance sequence that is used to punctuate the film’s finale. Indeed, the credit was deserved because that dance sequence not only served as a perfect coda for Boyle’s kinetic vision but it also elevated the entire film and transformed an otherwise grim little story about poverty and crime into the “feel good movie of 2008.”

To me, this scene epitomizes everything that caused me to fall in love with film in the first place.

Film Review: 127 Hours (directed by Danny Boyle)

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last Friday night, my friend Jeff and I went down to the Plano Angelika and saw Danny Boyle’s new film, 127 Hours.

I have to admit that I was a little bit uneasy about seeing this film. First off, it’s a movie based on the true story about a mountain climber who spent 5 days trapped in a narrow canyon. I am intensely claustrophobic, to the extent that I’ve had panic attacks just from finding myself trapped in a crowded grocery store aisle. (Seriously, why does everyone in the world have to go shopping for La Choy Sweet and Sour sauce at the same time I do?) Secondly, the trapped climber eventually escaped by using a dull knife to saw off his right arm. I mean, ewwwwww!

But I knew I had to see the film for three reasons. Number one, it stars James Franco who I’m kinda in love with. Number two, Danny Boyle is one of my favorite directors. And, finally, 127 Hours is probably going to be nominated for best picture. So, I worked up my courage and I tried not to think about the various news reports about audience members passing out while watching the film, and I went to the movie. And I’m glad I did because 127 Hours is one of the best films that I’ve seen in quite some time.

James Franco plays Aron Ralston, a cocky but likable guy who decides to spend the weekend hiking across some place called Blue John Canyon. (Sorry, I’m not really an outdoorsey type of girl.) He tells no one of his plans and the only people who know he’s even at the canyon are two girls that he meets while there. The girls have gotten lost in the canyon and they accept Aron’s help in finding whatever grand archeological thing it is that they’re looking for. (See previous apology.)

I have to be honest here. As I watched these two girls go off with a perfect stranger, a part of me wanted to be all like, “Oh, I would never do something as stupid as go off with some stranger I met out in the middle of nowhere.” But, then again, this isn’t just some stranger. This is James Franco. So, I’ll refrain from passing judgment. I just hope that the girls had their pepper spray with them.

(The two girls, by the way, are played by Kata Mara and Amber Tamblyn. I loved Joan of Arcadia. Can you believe they cancelled it for Ghost Whisperer? Not cool, CBS.)

Anyway, after frolicking in an underground pool, Aron and the girls part company. They invite him to come to a party the next night. They tell him to just look for a big, inflatable Scooby Doo. Aron agrees, walks off, and promptly finds himself trapped in a canyon when a boulder falls on top of him and pins his right arm against the canyon wall. As quickly as that, Aron goes from being a carefree adventurer to literally being a prisoner, isolated and alone. As Franco screams for help, Boyle pulls the camera upward from Aron until eventually he’s a barely noticeable speck surrounded by a barren (and otherwise unpopulated) desert. It’s a moment that you know is coming but it’s still shocking and devastating because it stands in such stark contrast to the film’s first 20 minutes when both Boyle and Franco filled each scene with a sense of constant motion. Suddenly, everything has stopped and we’re as trapped as Aron.

The rest of the film is pretty much a one-man show. We watch as Aron spends the next five days fighting to just survive. He tries to chip away at the rock with a knife (yes, that knife). He talks to his camera, keeping a diary and leaving messages for his family. He fights off hungry ants and tries to conserve his water. He even manages to invent a pretty neat little pulley system to try to move the rock. Finally, he starts to hallucinate, seeing everything from his family disdainfully watching his predicament to a gigantic inflatable Scooby Doo stalking him in the canyon. And finally, of course, he starts to cut off his arm.

He also finds some time to think about the life he led up to the moment he found himself trapped underneath the rock. This is where Boyle really shines because, in the hands of most directors, these scenes probably would have been very maudlin and heavy-handed. However, Boyle presents these scenes in an almost impressionistic style. We see hints of the life that Aron has led but Boyle never comes out and blatantly says that, up until this point, Aron never been willing to truly connect with others. We sees scenes of Aron’s ex-girlfriend breaking up with him but we’re never specifically told what led to her leaving him. And we don’t need to be. Boyle presents us with the evidence and trusts us to draw the correct conclusion.

I am very proud to say that I watched the entire film without once having a panic attack though I did start to feel a little bit light-headed when Aron really started to get into sawing off his arm. At this point, I did end up burying my head in Jeff’s shoulder and watching the scene out of the corner of my eye. At the same time, it’s an oddly exhilarating sequence because we know that the only way Aron will survive is by cutting off his arm and, as a result of Franco’s performance, we really do want Aron to survive.

In retrospect, 127 Hours really is the ultimate guy film in that the film basically celebrates a guy who gets stranded in the desert for five days yet manages to survive without ever once having to ask for directions. However, as a result of the whole experience, he comes to realize he should have been nicer to his ex-girlfriend which means that chicks like me can enjoy the movie as well. My main concern is that the film is such a total guy flick that we might see a sudden epidemic of men amputating their limbs in order to show that they can handle it as well as James Franco did. As we left the theater, I assured Jeff that he didn’t have to chop off his hand just to impress me. Hopefully, he listened.

James Franco is generating a lot of Oscar buzz for his performance here and he should be. Franco is one of those performers who is so pretty that it’s easy to forget that he’s actually a pretty good actor. I thought he deserved a nomination for his performance in Milk. He deserves the Oscar for his performance here.

Along with a best actor nod for Franco, it seems likely that 127 Hours will also pick up nominations for best picture and best director. Interestingly enough, Boyle will probably find himself competing with the man he beat two years ago, David Fincher (previously nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and a probable nominee this year for The Social Network.) This is somehow appropriate as Danny Boyle has consistently proved himself to be the director that David Fincher is supposed to be and, by being a massively hyped film that lives up to all the praise, 127 Hours is the anti-Social Network. While The Social Network uses a “true” story as an excuse to judge and ridicule, 127 Hours uses its true story to celebrate humanity, flaws and all. Whereas Fincher seems to only celebrate film, Boyle celebrates life.

127 Hours.

See it.