Slumdog Millionaire (2008) Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

See also: Plot Structure (Slumdog Millionaire) | Backbeats (Slumdog Millionaire)

Quick Facts

  • Director: Danny Boyle (co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan)
  • Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy
  • Source novel: Q & A by Vikas Swarup (2005)
  • Producer: Christian Colson
  • Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle
  • Editor: Chris Dickens
  • Music: A. R. Rahman
  • Studio / distribution: Celador Films, Film4 / Fox Searchlight, Warner Bros. (US), Pathé (UK)
  • Released: August 30, 2008 (Telluride premiere); November 12, 2008 (US wide); January 9, 2009 (UK)
  • Runtime: approximately 120 minutes
  • Awards: Eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director (Boyle), Best Adapted Screenplay (Beaufoy), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score (Rahman), Best Original Song ("Jai Ho"), Best Sound Mixing
  • Rotten Tomatoes / critical reception: widely praised; Roger Ebert's four-star review

Cast

  • Dev Patel — Jamal Malik (adult, the contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?)
  • Ayush Mahesh Khedekar — Youngest Jamal
  • Tanay Chheda — Middle Jamal
  • Madhur Mittal — Salim Malik (adult, Jamal's older brother)
  • Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail — Youngest Salim
  • Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala — Middle Salim
  • Freida Pinto — Latika (adult, Jamal's lifelong love)
  • Rubina Ali — Youngest Latika
  • Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar — Middle Latika
  • Anil Kapoor — Prem Kumar (host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?)
  • Irrfan Khan — Police Inspector who interrogates Jamal
  • Saurabh Shukla — Sergeant Srinivas
  • Mahesh Manjrekar — Javed (the gangster who claims Latika)
  • Ankur Vikal — Maman (the orphan-ring boss)

Overview

Slumdog Millionaire is told across three time-frames braided together: a present-day police interrogation in which a teenage chai wallah from the Juhu slums is being questioned about how he reached the final question of Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?; the immediately-preceding broadcast of the show, which the interrogation is reconstructing question by question; and the long flashbacks to Jamal's childhood and adolescence that each question on the show pulls from his memory. The structural premise — captured in the on-screen multiple-choice frame that opens and closes the film, "Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it? A. He cheated. B. He's lucky. C. He's a genius. D. It is written." — is that a slum-born orphan can answer the questions on India's most-watched quiz show because the questions happen to be the contents of his life.

The film tracks three intertwined arcs: Jamal's pursuit of Latika (a girl he meets as a child the day his mother is killed in the 1992–93 Bombay riots); the divergence between Jamal and his older brother Salim, who takes the gangster's path under Maman and then Javed; and the on-air progress through the show under the host Prem Kumar's increasingly hostile attention. The ten Two Approaches rivets are mapped on Plot Structure (Slumdog Millionaire): the film places in the better-tools, sufficient quadrant — a fairy-tale comedy in which the post-midpoint approach (trust that the show is the broadcast Latika is watching, lock in answers including the one the biography cannot supply) is tested at maximum stakes and holds. Salim's parallel arc occupies the off-diagonal worse-tools, insufficient (tragedy) quadrant; the film stages the two arcs side by side so the protagonist's choice is legible against the brother's.

The film took eight Oscars at the 81st Academy Awards including Best Picture. A. R. Rahman's score and the closing "Jai Ho" platform dance are widely cited as central to its reception.