Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Premise: Poised to be the first person to win 20 million rupees on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Jamal (Dev Patel) is hauled into questioning by the police (led by Irrfan Khan) who want to know how a slumdog who serves chai at a call centre knows all the answers. Jamal tells them about moments in his life with his older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) and true love Latika (Freida Pinto) that furnished him with what he needed to know.

I've read quite a few things along the lines of "if it wasn't set in India" or "if it weren't told in flashback" or "if not for this cast," and you know what I say? Fuck that. With Hollywood's War on Original Ideas (tm the Vulture) still on-going, what's wrong with doing anything we can to take a basic premise (guy bests unbeatable odds to win dream girl) and turn it into something fresh? If we can get something funny, heartfelt, and uplifting in the process, why are we looking a gift horse in the mouth?

That's what this one feels like, at any rate: a gift. 2008 isn't going to go down in the books as one of this decade's better years for movies (sucks to have to follow 2007), and I've been hard pressed, at this point in the game, to name what I think the best movies of the year have been so far. If co-directors Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan want to hand us this thrilling and ultimately sweet gift, why say no?

Working in tandem with gorgeous, sensual, and richly textured work from cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (he also did Boyle's amazingly shot 28 Days Later . . .) and the surprisingly subtle screen adaptation from Simon Beaufoy (who apparently invented the love story that both anchors the plot and sends it soaring), Boyle and Tandan have nothing short of magic on their hands. Every scene is alive with motion, colour, and energy; even the subtitles (the movie is partially in Hindi) dance across the screen, highlighted by different colours for each speaker.

It's hard to single out one performance in a movie filled with pitch perfect ones (the youngest versions of Jamal, Salim, and Latika are particularly endearing), but attention must be given to Patel nonetheless. There's very little that's universal in a story so particular, and it falls on his shoulders, as the oldest version of Jamal and as the storyteller, to make it personal. Patel succeeds by turning Jamal inward, making him quiet and conscientious but still bright. His ability to imagine a life for himself is limited to one that involves Latika, and his singular devotion to that vision is what gives him (and thus his performance) its strength.

There was another movie that I recall that had a lot of "if not for this" and "if not for that" comments about how beat out very narrow odds to become excellent. It was Shop Around the Corner, and you know what they called such movies back then? Lightening in a bottle. Why can't we still have lightening in a bottle? A