Is That Your Final Answer?

In these dark times people are looking for hope. They are looking for leadership. They are looking for understand for their fellow man. They want to see dreams come true, and love prevail. If these are what you are looking for, then I can't point to anything else other then "Slumdog Millionaire," a British film that while funded and directed by the British, is an adaptation of an Indian story about a young boy who lives in the slums and gets a chance at instant success. In that one sentence you can see traces of a classic underdog story and a hopeful fantasy. The boy is named Jamal (Dev Patel), who starts out the movie being interrogated by Indian police under suspicion of cheating the hit game show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" (though Regis Philbin is not the host for this version).

The boy tells his life story through flashbacks. These flashbacks, but with present day scenes of the game show, reveal how circumstances in, got him the answers he needed to get so far in the show. But for him this is all irrelevant. How he got the answers doesn't concern him much, he's not even that interested in winning the money. No, he's more concerned with getting his face across the world so that Latika, a girl who he's been in love with since childhood, will see him and come find him. Every time we see Latika we see her as a beautiful woman. Perfect and loving in every way, but also constantly out of reach, like many of the dreams we have. Dreams that life seems to want to stand in the way of sometimes.

It's easy to see why this movie has as many supporters as it does critics. The movie is pure fantasy and borderlines on being cotten candy. Rags to riches stories are assumed to be manipulative, but rarely is it more evident then in this film. The kid goes onto to TV, and not only has life set him up to know these answers, but they are asked in chronilogical order of his entire life, giving us the opportunity to see the flashbacks in the correct order. Those who can't suspend disbelief are not welcome to watch this movie, it may be too much of a stretch for their fragle little minds. That said it's also wonderfully moving, giving us characters we care about above all else, and the suspense during the game show moments actually reminded me why all of America was so fixated with the game show when it originally aired in America. It just goes to show how universal this stuff really is.

It's hard not to relate to this movie, and yet early on people were debating whether American's would "get" the story. Being that the movie is filmed with unknowns, a foreign director, and in a country most of American is unfamiliar with, these concerns seem justified at first, until you start to watch the movie. "Slumdog Millionaire," while taking place in foreign lands, is about as uniting a film can be. A movie where everyone has felt the emotions going through Jamil, have always searched for that perfect girl, who has a dream they can just never get to come true. Without stars mugging for the camera, we are left with a simple story whose heart shines ever so brightly. A masterpiece among other things, "Slumdog Millionaire" is one of the best films of the year.