Lion is based on one of the more incredible true stories I’ve ever heard, quite frankly. Does the film live up to that incredible story? Mostly, yes.
THE BLURB:
Five year old Saroo gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of miles across India, away from home and family. Saroo must learn to survive alone in Kolkata, before ultimately being adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, armed with only a handful of memories, his unwavering determination, and a revolutionary technology known as Google Earth, he sets out to find his lost family and finally return to his first home.
WHAT WORKED:
Okay…so the first Act of this movie, which is a good 45 minutes or so long, is CAPTIVATING. I was 1,000% in. Good lord. It’s so good, I was crying just *thinking* about where I knew the story was going. The child actors in this film are incredible. They do suuuuuch a good job showing how much Saroo loves his family, and how much they love him in such a miniscule amount of time, which is *exactly* what they needed to do, because of what comes next.
Saroo gets lost. I felt like screaming at the television when it happened. It’s devestating. Tragic. And what he finds in Calcutta is so, soooo dangerous and inhospitable. I didn’t know the true story going in, but I did know it was going to end up with a search to reunite with his lost family…so what happens in Calcutta is terrifying. He’s so vulnerable, as are all the real children in similar positions to this day in India.
And the end of the film…I won’t spoil it, but it delivers on the promise of the beginning. And at the end of the day, that’s really all this movie needed to do.
The other odd twist to this movie for me is that I’ve been listening to its soundtrack for almost a year now, ever since it was up for the Best Picture Oscar last year. It’s by Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka, and it is GORGEOUS. I can’t recommend it enough. I write to it all the time, which is funny because I had no idea how appropriate this story was for my own current WIP.
Lastly, the acting was amazing. From everyone, but especially the Saroos: Sunny Pawar and Dev Patel. I’d cast Dev in anything, to be honest. He’s *incredible*. Easily one of my favorite actors on the planet right now.
WHAT DIDN’T:
The muddy middle.
As soon as we transition into “adult” Saroo, the movie starts to stumble. The courtship between Rooney Mara and Dev Patel is mostly clunky with a few hints here and there of real-relationship-type chemistry.
Mostly, though, the problems of the middle of the story are the impetus and drive behind Saroo’s search for his real family. They make it very, very angsty, and I get the distinct feeling that was NOT part of the true story. I know why they did it that way…the middle of your story needs to build, it needs to have conflict and tension…but it seems to me that the actual work of finding his family was difficult enough in real life that you didn’t need to force the angst in there. It immediately makes Dev’s Saroo unlikable, and that’s a shame. They focus so much on him pushing away his girlfriend and his family without reason, particularly his girlfriend which was *completely* unjustified, that the actual task of finding his real village and then getting there takes all of five minutes of screen time. Bad decision. Could have been better.
Ultimately, it is that muddy middle that kept this film off the Oscar podium. It’s a wonderful effort, however, from a first-time filmmaker, and I’ll bet you that the next movie he makes will do much better with the “muddy middle.” It all takes a back seat, however, to the true story, which we get a tantlizing and very, VERY moving bit of at the very end of the flim. What an incredible story!
8 out of 10 – watch it for the beginning and the end…then read the book (I am!)