Slumdog Millionaire: Overrated?

Slumdog Millionaire is overrated.

Slumdog Millionaire’s success at this year’s Academy Awards was inevitable. That’s right—everyone knew that this movie would win over the hearts of the Academy and bring home a few gold men. The real question of the night was “How many Oscars would be won?” And the answer: eight. Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars on Sunday night, becoming the eighth film in Academy Award history to accomplish that feat. Of course this is a tremendous accomplishment, but Boyle has more than himself to thank for the movie’s success; Boyle might as well write personal “Thank You” cards to Hollywood’s directors for the lack of great films released in 2008.

Simply put, 2008 was a bad year for movies. In 2007, we were graced with classics such as Norbit, The Mist, Black Snake Moan, The Number 23, I Know Who Killed Me, and Epic Movie. All jokes aside, many movies released in 2007 (No Country for Old Men, Atonement, There Will Be Blood, Into the Wild, Once, Juno, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and 3:10 to Yuma) were better than a majority of the movies nominated for Oscars this year—and oh yes, that includes Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire is one of the most overrated movies that has ever won an Oscar.

Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of Jamal, a young man from the slums of Mumbai who somehow appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? After doing surprisingly well on the game-show, the show’s host and some law enforcement officials become suspicious of Jamal and believe that he is cheating the game. Through the use of various flashbacks, viewers become aware of Jamal’s troubling past and it is revealed how he knows most of the game’s answers. Slumdog Millionaire is an entertaining, feel-good movie, and the acting—particularly among the children—is pretty good.

But of course, Slumdog Millionaire has many flaws. Some of the sequences reminded me of an MTV music video, concentrating more on the hilarity of the children stealing food to the tune of MIA’s Paper Planes than the actual depressing thought of children needing to steal in order to survive. The plot, although interesting, was predictable and offered little for character development. And the relationship between Jamal and Latika, which ended up being the main plotline of the movie, was shallow. Prior to Jamal revealing his true love for this childhood crush, the two had only spent about five minutes on-screen together. And does this cute little story offer anything new or insightful to the world of cinema? No. It is merely an entertaining Cinderella story that attempts to make people feel good about Jamal’s rise from the slums. The film Disney-ifies the poverty of Mumbai in an effort to gloss-over the true horrors of a life in the slums and suggest that money is the key to happiness. At one moment in the movie, Jamal is beaten by an old man and exclaims to some American tourists, “You wanted to see a bit of the real India? You’re in it!” The tourists respond with, “Well here’s a bit of the real America” and then hand Jamal a hundred-dollar bill (At this point, I puked in my mouth a little bit). Walter Shaw, a movie critic for Film Freak Central, argues, “If Slumdog Millionaire isn't a racist melodrama that uses real misery and human degradation as the backdrop for a fairytale of how everything works out in the end (and it is), then it's a movie that says the key to escaping the hell of privation and a complete lack of hope for the future isn't betterment through education, but winning a goddamned Western game show.”

Others have argued that the film is an insult to the country of India and its people. In the weekly magazine India Today, an Indian filmmaker named Priyadarshan called it “absolute and intentional exploitation of India” (New York Times). Does this movie cross the line? To answer that question, one must ask them self if there is a moral problem with portraying human depravity and anguish as objects of art used to fulfill the voyeuristic fetishes of the Western world. Some have even gone as far as to call the film “poverty porn.” London Times’ columnist Alice Miles argues, “As the film revels in the violence, degradation and horror, it invites you, the Westerner, to enjoy it, too… Slumdog Millionaire is poverty porn.”

So what is it that I am suggesting? Although Slumdog Millionaire is a pretty entertaining film, it is definitely not a great film. It misconstrues the image of India and it’s poverty problems by romanticizing the setting. The first 45 minutes of Slumdog intrigued me as it began to dwell on the disgusting underbelly of Mumbai’s child prostitution and begging ring, but ultimately, the film disappointed. Maybe it was the hype, but I believe the film did not accomplish much more than basic, on-the-surface entertainment, unlike great Oscar winners of the past (The Godfather, On the Waterfront, and even No Country for Old Men). Perhaps it was the uniqueness of the film that seduced Western viewers, but compared to some of the great Bollywood films, Slumdog is mediocre at best. Shyamal Sengupta, a film professor from Mumbai, criticized the film by calling it a “white man’s imagined India. It’s not quite snake charmers, but it’s close. It’s a poverty tour.”

Next time you watch Slumdog Millionaire, watch it with a critical eye. I believe that you will be able to understand were a lot of these arguments are coming from. And if you want to see a truly good film that realistically portrays the effects poverty has on a country, go see the newly released Italian film, Gomorra. Hopefully the Academy will one day recognize a film that portrays the true horrors of poverty and not just an entertaining, overrated film such as Slumdog Millionaire.


PS. I sent this article into the Echo (student run newspaper).... easiest 20 dollars i have ever made :)