This excerpt is from The Guardian, which is a British paper. Peter Bradshaw is the journalist, and this article (2.10.9), was written just after the BAFTA awards.
He defines the strengths and weaknesses of “Slumdog Millionaire”, which make it a tricky ”Best Picture” contender.
But is Slumdog Millionaire really as good as all that? This has always struck me as an entertaining, likeable and brash modern fairy story shot with tremendous pizzazz – but not exactly profound on the question of globalisation, poverty, 21st-century India or anything else. Some of the more awestruck notices it has been getting have left me a little bemused, though I wish this picture nothing but success. Watching a movie come from nowhere to win big against the pampered main players and self-adoring A-listers is exciting and heartening, like an old-fashioned giant-killing upset in the FA Cup.
Slumdog Millionaire is intriguing, though, because it is very difficult to pin down. Some audiences, promised a “feelgood” extravaganza, have been disconcerted to find themselves watching slum children deliberately blinded with acid and the main character tortured in a police station using methods that might make Dick Cheney wince. Other audiences, led to expect a harrowing look at contemporary India, have found themselves suspecting that India has been caricatured and the issues made light of, in a movie that often looks like it is targeted at a teen or young adult audience. But everyone is swept up in its energy and gusto, and the time is ripe to state that 18-year-old newcomer Dev Patel really does give a terrifically relaxed and persuasive performance. That said, I suspect that there is a touch of tulip fever being incubated in the Slumdog mania, which is now poised to sweep across the Atlantic to Los Angeles. On Sunday night I found myself thinking of The Crying Game, Neil Jordan’s 1992 movie with a twist, which at the time was the talk of le tout Hollywood, but now might leave the viewer wondering what the fuss was all about.
