I watched "Slumdog Millionaire" today (29th March 2009) with my dear friend Sourabh Sinha and his wife Ranjana. And man, I really loved watching the movie.
While I will not say that the storyline is very innovative (though certainly imaginative), what was really innovative was the presentation style. “Narration through flashback” is nothing new in movies. But usually it is a “continuous flashback”. What was really new in this movie was the “situational flashback”, the way every flashback scene was being presented in the context of another scene.
The quality of acting in this movie is really startling. While there is nothing surprising about the world class performance of Anil Kapoor (we all already know his class), I am simply floored by the acting delivered by Dev Patel (Jamal), Freida Pinto (Latika), Madhur Mittal (Salim) and even the child actors – Ayush Khedekar (youngest Jamal), Tanay Chheda (middle age Jamal), Rubina Ali (youngest Latika), Tanvi Lonkar (middle age Latika), Azharuddin (youngest Salim) and Ashutosh Gajiwala (middle age Salim).
Dev Patel has a beautiful command of facial expressions, which shows that he is a natural actor. Some effective pieces of facial expressions (and eye expressions) have been displayed by Freida Pinto as well. And little sweet Rubina and Ayush are also quite strong in this context. Tanay Chheda and Ashutosh Gajiwala have impressed me with their natural body movements and dialogue delivery. In a nutshell, it was a superb teamwork.
At the end, all the best for Freida and Dev. Hope they will have a great career, and will keep entertaining us for many more years.
Have you watched the movie? If not, then please watch it. I bet you will love it.
Photo Courtesy - www.firstshowing.net
