Slumdog Millionaire

Priya and Vinny bought us tickets to this for the weekend after Thanksgiving, and so a bunch of us trudged through the rain, stood in line to get into the theater, and waited to see what I thought would be another average film. However, Anil Kapoor was in it, and for some reason I get always get kick out of seeing Bollywood actors in US theaters. Not the chick-flick Aishwariya Rai movies, but Anil Kapoor? Come on now--he's cool. Kind of the same way I get super excited every time I see Om Puri for thirty seconds in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Or how I had a huge smile on my face when "Chaiyaa Chaiyya" was the opening song of Inside Man. Something inside of me gets all warm and fuzzy when the two cultures blend in mainstream US cinema.

I won't lie--the film was not an easy one for me to watch. I am a huge wuss. I tend to cover my eyes everytime there is a torture, murder or (even insinuated) rape scene in any movie, and this one had all three (more than once). My uneasiness while watching also stemmed from the timing of the film--we saw this movie the weekend after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, and the city this movie takes place in? Mumbai. The train station was the same station the terrorists took over, so I had an uncomfortable, eerie feeling everytime they showed it on screen. However, certain films just stick with you, and when it's all over, you find yourself amazed at the talent of the writer, the director, and all the actors to bring such a complex story to life with such precision. The last movie that struck a similar chord with me was Crash--incredibly difficult for me to watch, but an absolutely fantastic film.

Slumdog Millionaire was first and foremost a drama, but with a heavy romantic undertone. It also had comic relief (my favorite of which comes early in the film with an Amitabh Bachchan scene), suspense, and a hint of action (but don't expect any typical dashoom dashoom Bollywood sequences).

Today the Golden Globe nominations were announced, and Slumdog Millionaire picked up nominations for best film, best director (Danny Boyle), best screenplay (Simon Beaufoy) and best score (A.R. Rahman). If you haven't yet seen this film, go see it! It really is fantastic, and I'm hoping it takes home the big prize. On a personal note, thinking back to the film, I think my favorite thing about it is that it's a perfect depiction of the motto I live by in order to keep myself sane--everything happens for a reason.

To see a preview of Slumdog Millionaire, click here. Also, in case you do go see it--stay through the credits. I find it to be a hysterically appropriate nod to Bollywood--definitely worth staying for.