Slumdog Millionaire

Jamal Malik, call-centre chai wallah, has just reached the last round of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. How did someone largely schooled by hard knocks come to know the answers (and will he be able to answer the final question)? Danny Boyle shows us how Malik's life led to this point, to the answers, and more.

I really enjoyed this film. The Mumbai slums and the gangsters that prey on them are vivid and menacing, and Jamal and his brother Salim are entertainingly streetwise and enterprising. On the gameshow Jamal appears at first cowed but it soon becomes clear (not least to the presenter) that he's still got his smarts.

Salim is the most complex character in the film, deeply flawed but never satisfied with his fate, and shielding Jamal where he can. Few other characters in the film display real depth, instead serving as a canvass for the brothers paint on but (especially in the more hectic earlier parts of the film) this is no real complaint. I think the arrest subplot is the weakest: best to see it as framing device than part of the real story, indeed.

Very much recommended.