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Celebrating Slumdog Millionaire

The ultimate rags-to-riches saga, Slumdog Millionaire, has managed to cap its dream run at the box office with a stunning windfall at the Oscars.

The movie, set in Mumbai or rather its rather famous slums, has managed to bring its makers and amazing cast and crew eight Academy awards. This may not exactly be an Indian movie but the whole storyline, setting, lead actors, music and the whole production carry a huge ‘Made in 
India’ stamp.

Which is why the nation of a billion people is celebrating the spectacular success of Danny Boyle’s movie, from the humble slum dwellers of Dharavi to glamorous mall shoppers in Delhi, like its own. Even Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi did not capture the public imagination as this movie based on Vikas Swarup’s little known novel has.

Interestingly, it’s not even amongst the best Hollywood movies ever made. Nor does it have an intense storyline as is the case with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or any other movie that was nominated. But here is a movie that is clearly made for the quintessential common man. Here is an extraordinary tale of ordinary people in ordinary settings. Here is a movie that captures the struggle of ordinary Indians who fight hard to survive in one of the world’s largest and poorest cities. What is more, it makes you — whoever you are and wherever you are whether in Manhattan or Madras — fall in love with these ordinary individuals and identify with their day-to-day struggles, their pain and their joy. The story of Jamal, a poor Muslim boy from Dharavi who thinks big and dreams big, can be anybody’s story. This is what makes Slumdog Millionaire so successful — cinematically and aesthetically. Slumdog Millionaire was shot in Dharavi, Asia’s biggest slum. And getting slum kids to act — rather live their life — couldn’t have been an easy task by any means. Boyle and his team indeed deserved that statue for the best film as well as the best director.

If yes, we’ll have a perfect ending to a 
perfect story.

• OPINION