The Who Wants to be a Millionaire? song used to mean so much to America. The lights went down, Regis Philbin spun in his chair, and we were thrilled by the beginnings of reality TV. Most of all, though, the song heralded promise-the promise that by spending an hour in Philbin’s spaceship of a studio, a regular person could use luck and determination to win a whole lot of money. Slumdog Millionaire, a movie based around the Indian version of the show, asks us to believe in that innocent hope-and a whole lot more.
Jamal, a poor orphan from Mumbai, is the slumdog of the film’s title. In an attempt to find his childhood love, he goes on the game show, knowing she’ll be watching. After an unlikely series of correct answers, he’s kidnapped by the show’s host and tortured to reveal how he succeeded. In a clever conceit, director Danny Boyle uses this as a frame story for flashbacks to Jamal’s life-Jamal knows Samuel Colt invented the revolver because Jamal’s brother Salim’s first gun was a Colt.
Millionaire is being compared to City of God, another film whose gorgeous visuals couldn’t help but glamorize Third World poverty. But while the viewer can feel like a poverty tourist at times, Millionaire is most like one of Boyle’s earlier films, 28 Days Later. In that movie, zombies tear people apart because of one emotion: rage. Millionaire’s characters are similarly motivated by simple goals. Salim, for example, does whatever will make us feel sorriest for his brother. Jamal, on the other hand, is all about pursuing his love Latika, the girl from whom he was separated while fleeing an orphanage.
Why Jamal loves Latika so much, and vice versa, is never sufficiently explained. They spend so little time getting to know each other and so much time apart, that Jamal’s decade-long quest begins to seem more obsessive than sweet. Boyle plays the audience’s emotions like a yo-yo, reuniting and separating the couple repeatedly for arbitrary reasons. Whenever Latika and Jamal are together in a room with a third person, that individual always seems to pull them apart.
Stay for Millionaire’s credits and you’ll be treated to a Bollywood-style dance number. While this grounds the movie in its Indian setting, the movie’s message-that hardwork, luck, and love can overcome any hardship-appeals in this country, too.
