Total stunner
I am completely and totally blown away by Slumdog Millionaire. I wish someone I could talk about it at length with someone who's seen it, but I don't know that anyone I know actually has. It's one of very, very few movies in which I've been able to get lost and forget that I'm watching a movie. That never happens to me, especially in the last few years. Some part of my brain is always evaluating the actors or trying to figure out why a certain was framed in a certain way or looking at the design elements. It's extraordinarily rare that I can just sit back and be taken in by the reality of a movie. The last time I remember that happening was the first time I saw Moulin Rouge, and that's why that ending was so heartbreaking to me for so long. I'd given myself over to that movie, and so it affected me much more deeply. I had also never seen anything like Moulin Rouge. That story was told in a totally new way, and to see movie-making take on such a fresh form made it easier to fall into it.
Slumdog Millionaire took that feeling and that newness to the next level. It's really a very classic, fairy tale kind of story, but the twists on that basic story are brilliant. And the framework that the movie hangs on is so unique and so right for the story being told. The acting is phenomenal, especially the children. They sell the main character's history, and the work that they do makes the ending incredibly satisfying on multiple levels. (Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of giving anything away.) It almost feels wrong to talk about it from this sort of cinema studies perspective, because it all still feels so real to me. I haven't had put my heart into a movie in a long time, but this was an extraordinary film that totally lives up to all its hype, and even goes beyond it. So go see it. It would be impossible to be disappointed.
Slumdog Millionaire took that feeling and that newness to the next level. It's really a very classic, fairy tale kind of story, but the twists on that basic story are brilliant. And the framework that the movie hangs on is so unique and so right for the story being told. The acting is phenomenal, especially the children. They sell the main character's history, and the work that they do makes the ending incredibly satisfying on multiple levels. (Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of giving anything away.) It almost feels wrong to talk about it from this sort of cinema studies perspective, because it all still feels so real to me. I haven't had put my heart into a movie in a long time, but this was an extraordinary film that totally lives up to all its hype, and even goes beyond it. So go see it. It would be impossible to be disappointed.