Not Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Cross posted here…

To be honest, if I had an Oscar ballot this year (and honestly, why don’t I?), I’d write-in The Wrestler. Ayo! But if I had to vote off the ones that were actually nominated, I’d vote Slumdog Millionaire in a walk. To me, Slumdog is the closest thing we had to a universally great movie this year, one that was both massively entertaining and thoughtfully rewarding. And that’s pretty much how I judge which movie deserves to be “Best Picture”: the movie that can convey meaningful themes and messages in the most entertaining and universal way possible.

Slumdog hit the ground running after TIFF and Telluride, garnering a massive buzz and earning a limited U.S. release. In a year where the biggest story had been the crushing, cynical realism of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, word about a movie as rich and uplifting as Slumdog Millionaire had people excited, and for good reason. Everything about Slumdog represented the sunny side of movies, from the cute kid actors, to the sappy love story, to the feel good ending. The mix of Indian culture and Bollywood infused stylings gave this movie pretty much everything it possibly could have needed to take the world by storm. And I’d be tempted to give it a pass in the Not Best Picture series if the movie had stuck with what worked for it, mainly the unflinching peek into the lives of Mumbai “slumdogs” (is that term derogatory?), the unapologetic romance, and the joyful Bollywood flourishes.

The movie’s biggest problem is also its biggest asset: the structure of the plot. The whole, gameshow question/flashback/explanation hook has the effect of whipping you into such a frenzy by the end of the movie, you really don’t have any time to stop and consider how….moderately pointless all of this is. Do we REALLY care why Jamal knows the answers? When you watch it for the first time, of course you do, but it doesn’t really matter so long as Jamal gets the answers right and gets to keep playing. On multiple views, the movie loses a good amount of steam. You know why he knows, you know he’s not lying, you know he’s going to win and everything’s going to be okay. But objectively, you knew all of that going into the movie, didn’t you? Add to that, the clumsy handling of Salim’s death or the stiff-as-a-board portrayal by the adult Latika, the movie’s got some holes in it that are easily filled by the grand awesomeness of “when are they getting to the fireworks factory” effect that the plot structure has on viewers.

I’m not going to sit here and try to tear down a movie that I personally loved. While it’s true that there are no perfect movies, there are near-perfect movie moments that keep you watching movies, like a junkie searching for that first high again. And really, other than a few minor nitpicks, the only criticism I can really lob at Slumdog is that it’s never going to be as good as the first time. So screw it, I’m cheering for this one to win.