Flashes of Panic

I saw this movie last night. It’s had a lot of buzz and, in my opinion, justifies it; it’s a story that’s both very old and told in a very new way.

A day later, the thing that’s sticking with me now is the two boys who are the center of the film. Actually, it’s one, Jamal, in the center, and his older brother Salim, who is a supporting character in the movie’s story but his own action hero in his own mind.

These kids come from nothing—in one scene they are sleeping in a garbage dump—but throughout the film, from start to finish, they’re never down. They’re either running a scam (generally Salim’s idea) or in full retreat. They never seem to have anything more than the clothes on their backs (in one scene, Jamal gives away a stolen $100 bill, apparently unaware or careless of its value; $100 is pretty close to 5,000 rupees today). And because they have nothing to lose, there’s nothing holding them back; they’re almost always on offense, capitalizing on where they are and seldom, if ever, looking back.

A movie about that kind of grinding poverty could easily be depressing, but this attitude, just a slight twist on the depressive attitude which so often keeps real poor people poor, makes it refreshing. And by the end, the game show Jamal is on looks like a pitiful toy of a contest after what he’s already been through—no wonder he has such contempt for it, and for the money it offers. It’s never been about the money for him.

The rating is R for “some violence and disturbing images” but for me, the most disturbing image was Jamal and his brother wandering around the upper floor of a high-rise under construction, with no railings. There’s no violence in this movie you won’t find on TV if you stay up after 9. There’s language, of course, and not just English.