Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire, British dramatic film, released in 2008 and directed by Danny Boyle, that won eight Academy Awards, including those for best picture and best director, as well as several BAFTA awards and Golden Globe Awards, including those for best film and best director.

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As the film opens, Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel) is being tortured in a police station in Mumbai. The 18-year-old orphan, who grew up in Mumbai’s slums and works as a chai wallah (tea server) in a call center, is one question away from winning the grand prize on the next episode of the Indian version of the popular quiz television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and both the show’s host, Prem (Anil Kapoor), and the police assume that he is cheating. The police inspector (Irrfan Khan), however, thinks that Jamal may not be lying. As the inspector plays a tape of the show, a series of flashbacks reveal the life experiences that led Jamal to the correct answer to each question. In the first flashback, Jamal and his brother Salim are young children being chased by a policeman through a slum neighborhood; when they reach their mother, she drags them into a school classroom. Next, the Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan (Feroze Khan) visits the slum, and Jamal, after escaping an outhouse into which his brother has locked him, gets an autograph, which his brother steals and sells. (The first question on the quiz show asks for the name of the star of a 1973 hit film; the answer is Amitabh Bachchan.) Shortly thereafter, a Hindu mob attacking Muslims invades the slum, and Jamal’s mother is killed. (During the riot, Jamal encounters a child dressed as the god Rama; another question on the show asks what Rama is depicted as holding.) After Jamal and Salim take shelter in a shipping container, a young girl, Latika, arrives, and Jamal invites her in, despite Salim’s objections. Later, the gangster Maman (Ankur Vikal) lures the three children into his gang of child street beggars. (The next quiz show question asks for the writer of a hit song; Maman teaches the children to sing this song while begging.) When Salim discovers that Maman blinds boys to make them more effective beggars, he attacks Maman, and Salim, Jamal, and Latika flee, but only the boys make it onto a train.

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For the next few years, Jamal and Salim eke out a living on the train. When they arrive at the Taj Mahal, they act as tour guides, while stealing from the tourists. After receiving a $100 bill as a tip (another question asks what statesman appears on the American $100 bill) from American sightseers, Jamal insists that he and Salim return to Mumbai to search for Latika. There Jamal discovers one of Maman’s beggars, who, in return for the $100 bill, tells them where Latika is to be found. They locate Latika in a red-light district and prepare to leave with her, but Maman arrives to block their escape. Salim produces a revolver (the next question asks for the name of the inventor of the revolver) and demands Maman’s money. After Maman empties his pockets, Salim kills him. The three young people find refuge in an abandoned hotel, and then Salim leaves to seek out the gangster leader Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar). He then returns to the hotel and forces Jamal out at gunpoint.

In the next flashback, Jamal is working at the call center, where the break room television always shows Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. (The workers in the call center are to pretend that they are British, and another quiz show question asks in which British city Cambridge Circus is located.) Jamal uses the customer service database to find Salim’s phone number. Jamal agrees to meet Salim (Madhur Mittal), who now works as an enforcer for Javed. Salim invites Jamal to stay at his home but will not divulge Latika’s whereabouts. However, Jamal later follows Salim to Javed’s compound, where he sees Latika (Freida Pinto) inside. He fools a guard into letting him into the compound. Latika tells him that he needs to forget her, but he tells her that he will wait for her at the railroad station each afternoon at 5:00. She tries to meet him, but Javed’s men, led by Salim, catch her. Back on the game show, Prem tries to trick Jamal into giving the wrong answer to the penultimate question, but Jamal guesses the trick and chooses the right answer just before the end of that episode’s allotted time. Latika sees Jamal on the news, and Salim gives her his cell phone and car keys and tells her to go to Jamal. The police decide that Jamal is telling the truth and release him to return to the show for the final question. Salim kills Javed and is in turn killed by his men, Jamal answers the final question correctly, and Latika meets Jamal at the train station. The final scene, which takes place over the closing credits, is a Bollywood dance number performed to the song “Jai Ho.”

Scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy loosely based his screenplay on the acclaimed 2005 novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup. Six unknown children were chosen to play the main characters as children and teenagers, and some controversy arose over how the experience of being in the hugely successful film impacted the children’s lives. Longinus Fernandes, the choreographer of the closing dance sequence, was inadvertently omitted from the film’s credits, but Boyle publicly thanked him for his work at the televised Oscar ceremony. Composer A.R. Rahman collected a BAFTA award, a Golden Globe Award, two Oscars, and two Grammy Awards for his work.

Production notes and credits

• Studios: Warner Brothers, Celador Films, Film4, and Pathé Pictures International
• Director: Danny Boyle
• Writer: Simon Beaufoy (screenplay)
• Music: A.R. Rahman
• Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle

Cast

• Dev Patel (Jamal Malik)
• Freida Pinto (Latika)
• Madhur Mittal (Salim Malik)
• Anil Kapoor (Prem)
• Irrfan Khan (police inspector)
• Ankur Vikal (Maman)
• Mahesh Manjekar (Javed)

Academy Award nominations (* denotes win)

• Picture*
• Cinematography*
• Direction*
• Editing*
• Music (original score)*
• Music (original song: “Jai Ho”)*
• Music (original song: “O Saya”)
• Sound editing
• Sound mixing*
• Writing*