Slumdog Millionaire

JHS
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:40:52 +0000

I wouldn’t have a problem taking a 13-year-old to it. There’s some graphic violence and poverty, but nothing approaching most Hollywood action movies, although the “realistic” tone of the movie lends them perhaps more emotional impact than they have in action films. What there is, however, is plot elements involving exploitation and abuse of children and young teens.

I was very entertained by the movie, and have recommended it for weeks as a pretty sure bet. But in the end, I was a little disappointed with it. [Trying to be spoiler free.] While the young actors were sensational, those playing the 20-something romantic leads were a little lacking. And I very much disliked the passivity of the main female character, something that I thought sounded a very off note in the film’s basic project. (What I saw as the film’s basic project: Take a typical Bollywood plot, with equal measures of fantasy/moral didacticism/action, and film it to Western aesthetic tastes with far more realism than Bollywood permits. But Bollywood heroines are much more assertive than the main character here is, at least in the second half of the movie.)