{"id":1739,"date":"2008-12-19T03:30:56","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=1739"},"modified":"2011-03-15T13:40:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T21:40:32","slug":"slumdog-millionaire-danny-boyle-2008-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=1739","title":{"rendered":"Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008): UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by William Conlin<\/a>. Viewed at The Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I walk out of a film so amazed by what I\u2019ve just seen I can\u2019t even find words to describe how I feel. As I walked out of Danny Boyle\u2019s beautiful new drama Slumdog Millionaire<\/a><\/em> I just kept saying \u201cwow\u201d over and over again. But at the same time I thought to myself: the word wow doesn\u2019t do this film justice.<\/p>\n

Slumdog Millionaire<\/em> is the story of Jamal Malik, an orphan who struggled to survive in the streets of Bombay (now known as Mumbai) and who is now one question away from winning 20 million rupees on the game show \u201cWho Wants To Be A Millionaire?\u201d Before he can play for the jackpot he is dragged away by the police and accused of cheating. As the police interrogate him, Jamal reveals his life story and how his experiences helped a \u201cknow-nothing slumdog\u201d answer so many trivia questions on live television. As the police learn of the struggles Jamal, his brother and the love of his life Latika have gone through, they begin to believe him more and more. Now, with the entire nation watching, Jamal has one chance at a new life, all he has to do is answer one question.<\/p>\n

This film is an absolute knockout on every level. I am confident in saying this will most likely win at least one Oscar: Best Cinematography. Anthony Dod Mantle\u2019s cinematography is stunning to say the least. From the highs to the lows, Mantle and Boyle show us the essence of India and their near-constant use of Dutch angles keep the situation extremely tense. Additionally, this tension is brought to yet another level by A.R. Rahman\u2019s energetic and fitting score.<\/p>\n

As far as acting goes, this entire ensemble absolutely floored me. Dev Patel delivers a tour-de-force as the adult Jamal while Ayush Mahest Khedekar and Tanay Chheda brilliantly play him at two critical stages of his childhood. Featuring Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal and Anil Kapoor, this cast of relatively unknown actors brings these characters to life with a passion.<\/p>\n

One of the central ideas of this film is that sometimes your fate is written in the stars. When I woke up this morning I didn\u2019t have any intention of going to the movies. When my schedule changed I decided to see a film and as I scanned the list of current releases something clicked and I thought: \u201cI don\u2019t know much about it, but that looks good.\u201d I am so happy the stars aligned and fate brought me to this film. If you haven\u2019t seen Slumdog Millionaire<\/em>, go today, it will be worth every penny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by William Conlin. Viewed at The Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara. Sometimes I walk out of a film so amazed by what I\u2019ve just seen I can\u2019t even find words to describe how I feel. As I walked out of Danny Boyle\u2019s beautiful new drama Slumdog Millionaire I just kept saying \u201cwow\u201d over and over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}