DVD: Slumdog Millionaire (15)

Rob Sharp
Thursday 21 May 2009 19:00 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

If you've not heard of Danny Boyle's vibrant journey through Mumbai's slums courtesy of brothers Jamal and Salim Malik (a variety of Indian and British actors playing them as they age) then you've been living on another planet.

The multi-Oscar-winning film begins with Jamal (Dev Patel) appearing on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? As he progresses through the show, the programme's host, Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor) become increasingly unbelieving that Jamal is answering the questions legitimately, and organises for the young call centre worker to be taken in by the local police and interrogated. Under duress, it emerges that Jamal knows all of the show's answers due to the serendipitous circumstances of his struggle to survive in the slums of Mumbai. The film's narrative is then told through flashbacks explaining each of these circumstances.

It's a clever premise, and while the film cannot hope to realistically portray slum life, and observations that it is a telling portrait of class snobbery in India are perhaps wistful (we'll leave that to the book it was based on, Vikas Swarup's Q&A), if you're after a tear-jerking romantic romp with a modern twist this might be it. The cinematography stands up on DVD, where the picture is finished with some glitzy, if not massively insightful making-of featurettes.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in