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James reviewed Slumdog Millionaire last fall, when it was just creeping into limited release and most moviegoers—and some industry folks—were unaware of this low-budget indie film that almost ended up going straight to DVD.

And Erika reviewed it a few weeks later, as it was gaining buzz and those of us into film and living in areas where it was playing were starting to hear from friends about this small, amazing film.

So I guess it’s left to me to give my two cents worth on Slumdog Millionaire now that it has all its Oscars and is out on DVD.

When I first saw the film late last fall in the theater, I enjoyed it plenty, but was a bit nonplussed. As James says, it's terrific to be delightfully surprised by a film like this, and Erika points out Slumdog is a film you’re better off seeing with no expectations. Now that it’s this year’s Best Picture winner, I guess that approach is out the window.

On a second viewing I’d hope to be shoved off the fence and come away either loving or hating Slumdog, but no such luck. I still feel the way I did last November: It’s a wonderful film, made with energy, flair, and a joy for life that encompasses both the hopeful and the horrific, the caring and the cruelty. I look through my notes and I don’t see a single negative comment. And yet… I still don’t feel swept away by Slumdog the way most critics and Oscar voters were.

I realize this constitutes a failure on my part as a critic—after all, it’s okay to have reservations about a film, but it’s my job to explain why I feel the way I do about something, especially a something as praised as Slumdog Millionaire. But I’m honestly at a loss.

For starters, I’m a big fan of director Danny Boyle (don’t get me going on how crazy I am about his overlooked sci-fi thriller Sunshine). Boyle is known for jumping all over the  place genre-wise (from the drug scene of Edinburgh to the beaches of Thailand to a truly messed up metaphysical musical to pioneering the Fast-Moving Zombie Movement, to the literal surface of the Sun), but all of his films center on a powerful, timeless theme: how to survive, how to get by, how to pursue your dreams even as they lead you, sometimes literally, into big piles of crap. And mostly, how do we remain human and hopeful when things seem bleakest?

Despite how terrific and energizing the look, music, and performances of Slumdog are, it's that deeper idea that brings the film alive for me: the notion that life is a grand adventure driven by love and hope, but very much full of hate and suffering. And more than that, Slumdog sets out to prove that the very stumbling blocks and pits of despair we try to weave our way around are what make us great—they give us the experiences and lessons that build our character, or in its hero’s case, help us ultimately win.

I won’t spend much time on the  plot—by now  I’m sure you’re familiar with it. Two young Indian brothers—Jamal and Salim—are orphaned on the streets of Mumbai and grow up constantly on the run, hustling to survive and, in Jamal’s case, find his way back to his true love: the girl Latika they met along their way. Years later, after three sets of young actors have aged the trio on screen, Jamal makes his way to the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, where despite a lack of formal education—and to the suspicion of the authorities and the show's condescending host—he continues to win. The film is constructed almost entirely in flashback, as Jamal must explain to a police investigator how he came to know the answers. It turns out the keys to his game-show triumphs were drawn from some of his life’s biggest tragedies.

What I love most about Dev Patal's portrayal of the oldest version of Jamal is that while he may come off on the surface as passive or clueless, deep down he has the unflagging confidence of the lost—of those who know they are at Fate’s mercy and draw Zenlike strength and perseverance from knowing they know nothing. An ironic point driven home by his appearing on—and  winning—a trivia knowledge show.

There’s no doubt novel author Vikas Swarup, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, and director Boyle put their thumbs on the Scale of Life here—the plot of Slumdog has been described as both preposterous and a fairy tale. But I fully embrace the magic-realism, fable nature of the film–the Dickensian way fate and luck swerve in and out of Jamal’s life. The message isn’t that blind faith or cosmic coincidence will carry the day—instead Jamal works very hard, every day of his very hard life, to make his dream come true, to make his love real.

It’s not just a matter of enduring brutality (though our first look at Jamal jumps back and forth between  his success on the show and his being tortured in a police station) but of having something worth pursuing. The film is less than subtle about where Salim’s pursuit of money and power ends up in comparison to where Jamal’s quest for love takes him.

Slumdog’s cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle–most of it hand-held, some on digital—is brilliant not just at propelling the film forward with dizzying velocity and providing new visual treats around every corner, but also at underscoring a personal favorite aesthetic of mine. I love the odd grace and beauty of the urban “other”—the sides and corners of city life that people crop out of their vacation pictures, the decay and failure, the vulnerable exposure of new construction.

While Slumdog is about Jamal and his journey, there’s a large undercurrent here of how humans live, side by side, especially when packed into cities and pulled down into poverty and squalor. In that  respect, it sometimes plays as a narrative version of Godfrey Reggio's Powwaqatsi, echoing the 1988 documentary’s theme that the world is changing ever more rapidly, sweeping humans and humanity along with it, for better or worse. (Jamal works in a Mumbai telecom call center, literally at the geographic, technological, and economic crossroads of the New World.)

And just when all this seems to pile the heavy meanings on too thick, A.R. Rahman’s score and songs (plus MIA’s "Paper Planes") stands in cinematically for that elusive inner joy that can propel a life forward. Big dreams and plans are important, but to stoke those fires through the darkness you need the excitement and spirit that, well to borrow a cliché, keeps hope alive. In Slumdog, music provides that exuberant energy, right down to the wonderful, somewhat-odd-to-our-modern-Hollywood-sensibilities, closing dance number.

If all this  sounds like I really like Slumdog Millionaire, it’s because I do. It’s exhilarating, inventive storytelling and film making. I just wasn’t wildly, utterly floored by it. I don’t mind it winning Best Picture, I don’t begrudge it all its critical acclaim, and I will happily watch it again in the future.

But when a movie reaches this sort of cultural and artistic pinnacle so quickly, there’s a certain pressure to either jump on the bandwagon and love it unconditionally, or turn on it with vengeful, maybe somewhat bitter, iconoclastic backlash. I honestly don’t feel either of those for Slumdog. But I still highly recommend the film and genuinely hope it sweeps some of you away with an adoring abandon I never quite felt.

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