Here’s a different view by the uploader of this picture on flickr
Do not judge a book by its horrible movie!
[SPOILER ALERT]
Danny Boyle and Co. have taken a gritty, multi-dimensional piece of contemporary Indian literature, and turned it into a small-minded pot-boiler, with most of its scenes and themes copied from Hindi movies of the late 70’s and 80’s.
In Q&A, the protagonist, Ram Mohammad Thomas, was a baby abandoned in a dustbin near New Delhi Railway Station. He was given a home, and was taught to read, write and speak English (hopefully without the supercilious accent of the protagonist in the movie) by a catholic priest. Forced to leave behind these days of sunshine, Thomas enters a darker world at a tender age, makes friends and enemies, lives through days of love and loss, and dreams of a comfortable middle class happy ending. Fate takes Thomas on a whirlwind series of adventures, and each time Thomas emerges a little sadder, sometimes a little wiser, and often a lot stronger.
In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal is a weak petty little boy, who grows up to be a weak selfish young man. Jamal is the kind of protagonist to whom things happen, as opposed to Thomas, who made things happen in spite of everything. Jamal seems to have been cursed with an older brother Salim, who joins the mafia at the earliest opportunity, rapes and then sells off Jamal’s childhood sweetheart, and shoots people dead at every opportunity. Thomas’ friend Salim, had merely worked as a servant for a man with mafia links. Latika never existed in the book, Thomas never had a childhood sweetheart, rather he fell in love with a prostitute named Nita at the age of sixteen or thereabouts.
The movie Slumdog Millionaire has trivialized a polished piece of commentary on living and succeeding in any modern big city, into a mere love story of a slum dweller, with formula driven doses of mafia and sex thrown in for good measure. The movie also did not have the moral courage to go into the book’s various powerful themes like sexual abuse of helpless little boys, the desperation of a yesteryear’s movie actress, the self-delusion of an old army man, the innocent kindness of an autistic little boy, the various faces of motherhood, and a hundred million other subplots that come together in the mosaic of Thomas’ life.
For anyone who has not seen the movie, I’d advise them to read the book first. For anyone who has seen the movie, I’d advise them to read the book again, like I did, if only to take away the bad taste in the mouth that the movie leaves.
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