Just because it's the feel-good movie of the year doesn't mean it's any good. Some critics have said that if you don't like Slumdog Millionaire, you must not have a soul. That is just plain stupid. Slumdog Millionaire may be populated by actual slumdogs, which is admirable, and it may have been actually shot in the slums of Mumbai, which is admirable, but it's not like that makes it a landmark of social realism. Why is everyone touting this and not Salaam Bombay! which was SO FAR SUPERIOR? Salaam Bombay! was nominated for an Oscar, too. But nobody saw it.
Danny Boyle frustrates me. He knows how to make entertaining movies that are interesting to watch even as their clichés and retarded characterization make me want to scream. I had so many problems with Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary really is a bad movie. The only reason I've seen it multiple times is because Holly Hunter's scenes are magnificent. Slumdog Millionaire was no different--sleekly packaged, easy-to-handle "social realism" reminiscent of City of God, another movie that made me really angry.
I might not even have gotten so annoyed with Slumdog if I had turned it off before the last five minutes, but unfortunately I watched them. Why did it devolve more and more into a Bollywood ending? Was that really necessary? Why do movies like Trainspotting, City of God, and Slumdog Millionaire feel the need to glamorize something that really, truly, is not glamorous? I'll take something like Maria Full of Grace any day.
When I want to watch a beautiful movie that'll tug at my heart strings, without making me vomit, I'll watch Children of Heaven. I suggest you do so too.
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