movie - slumdog millionaire

you know how some movies can just make you feel good when you see them? as the credits roll you sit there still in the dark feeling warm and fuzzy and like our world is the best of all possible worlds and too bad this film had to end? slumdog millionaire is that kind of movie.

danny boyle,(in a severe departure from his trainspotting days,) and loveleen tandan have created a fantastical film that is at once believable and adorable. slumdog millionaire is set in mumbai, (formerly bombay,) a teeming metropolis of 13.5 million people that is home to the indian stock exchange and bollywood as well as some of the poorest slums in the world.

you have probably heard about the story by now. it is about a boy who grows up an orphan in the slums subjected to an especially harsh childhood who finds true love but can't quite hold on to it. he holds on to the memory of it, (of her, really,) however and shows a sense of purpose in recovering what he has lost that is admirable and uncommon. despite an array of travails, the main character, jamal, (played by dev patel,) stays focused on finding his true love, latika, (played by freida pinto.)

a sense of innocence pervades this movie. from the two boys growing up with only each other who always believe they can escape any situation and survive, to an out of place dance number during the end credits, (probably an aside to bollywood films but i am not familiar enough to know if this is the case for sure,) slumdog certainly involves a measure of fantasy.

in addition to this fantastical sense of innocence that makes this film so easy to embrace, there is something refreshing about the setting. mumbai comes to life and is like a co-star in slumdog millionaire, along with the indian history that is ever so delicately touched on along the way. jamal's mother is a victim of the hindu-muslim riots of january 1993. jamal and his brother salim work as unoffical tour guides at the taj mahal. jamal works for a time in a call center for a british phone service. these settings bring mumbai to life and spark a certain curiosity and sense of adventure that can no longer be summoned from a movie set in new york city.

ultimately the film leaves you with a sense that life really is the same the world over and while there is bad everywhere, there is good too and it often prevails. and when jamal and latika are seen dancing in front of a pyramid of what must be a hundred people dancing in sync as if the michael jackson thriller video just broke out impromptu on a train platform, you will feel good in part because of the commonality of disparate cultures and in part because you believe that life can have such perfect happy endings.

i don't think slumdog millionaire is in any way this year's best film but if what you are looking for when you walk into the theatre is to be entertained and to come out feeling positive, you simply cannot do better than this movie.