Cast: Anil Kapoor, Dev Patel, Frieda Pinto, Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla

Director: Danny Boyle

Dharavi boy Jamal Malik, server of ‘chai’, keeper of secrets, is one of the wise. He’s learnt his wisdom on the streets, and he uses it to become a millionaire.

Director Danny Boyle takes the bare bones of Vikas Swarup’s novel, and turns the film into an electric, visceral, kinetic feast, and an all-get-out entertainer. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is ‘Salaam Bombay’ on speed. Only it’s called Mumbai now.

Blood, sweat, tears. And that other bodily fluid—shit— that no one likes to acknowledge, least of all mainstream meisters. Danny Boyle uses these elemental qualities to construct call centre ‘chaipau’ Jamal ( Dev Patel) , and his ‘bizarrely plausible’ ( in the delightful phrase of one of the characters) world, constantly teetering on the edge of collapse, constantly being shored by the grit and gumption of those who live in it. And gives us an unlikely hero who is a metaphor for our times. Yes, Jamal can.

So can Latika ( Freida Pinto), his childhood sweetheart, who is also a product of the same sewage and lineage that he and his brother Salim come from. Their journey to young adulthood, fraught with many dangers, is not new for those who’ve seen Bollywood’s tryst with slum-homeless kids being blinded and maimed by beggar cartels is one of Hindi cinema’s oldest saddest tales, along with fresh virgins being readied to be deflowered by the highest bidder. Boyle invests old tropes with a welcome matter-of-factness, and is willing to learn on the job : his inordinate glee at showing his young urchin wallowing in human excrement is overtaken by Jamal’s unchecked exuberance - the slumdog conquers both the smell and the moment.

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