Academy Award Wednesdays: Slumdog Millionaire - HONORABLE MENTION

*A million...spoilers.

Slumdog Millionaire is fantastic in a lot of respects. Currently nominated for Best Picture (amongst several other awards), it's received with a lot of critical acclaim and has picked up lots and lots of statues already. It doesn't pass the Bechdel test, but don't lose hope yet. It still gets an honorable mention.

To summarize: the story is centered around two brothers, Salim and Jamal, and charters their entire lives from childhood on out. Salim is older, and as he grows up he becomes more aggressive, conniving, angry, brutish...and so on. Jamal is the scrappy one, and the story is his story. Salim and Jamal live in the slums of Mumbai; the film documents their sometimes horrid existence. They are they are chased by guards, orphaned, exploited, spat on, beat up--but they somehow come out of it alive and whole. After a riot orphans them, the duo takes in another street urchin girl named Latika--the third main player in the story. Jamal is infatuated by Latika even as a child. All three are taken in by a sort of orphanage, and when it turns out their caretaker has some rather sinister plans for them, they run. Latika is left behind. And so starts a pattern of reunion and abandonment that echoes for the rest of the film. The storytelling is what's really lovely--after finally finding Latika after many years, he goes on the gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire? to show her he's made something of himself. The story begins with him being interrogated by the police because everyone thinks he's cheated. But the twist is each question he answers is intricately linked to his past.


Slumdog Millionaire suffers from one-woman-show syndrome. There's only one girl in the film with an actual character name--Latika--while the rest are simply designated as "Jamal and Salim's mother" and "American tourist." Obviously, none of these women hold conversations together about something other than men. More alarmingly so, these women are constantly painted as victims in their hostile Mumbai environment--it strikes in the same vein as The Dark Knight. Here is a seemingly realistic, full-fleshed, tough-as-hell environment...and again, the only roles women play are victims (or they're brief and ignorant, such as the tourist). They don't serve a purpose other than pity.

Latika attempts to stand on her own, but it's rare to find a situation where she isn't forced into making a choice or is able to do something that isn't made possible by the charity of others. When the two brothers find her again, she's a dancer who's value grows in worth every day that she remains a virgin. Salim kills her keeper and the two save her, so Jamal and Latika are reunited once more, albeit briefly. Salim, intoxicated with guns, power and money, points a gun at Jamal's head, telling him to leave. Jamal insists rather heartbreakingly that Latika come with him, but Salim has his own plans for her. Jamal doesn't leave, and it seems that for a moment brother will kill brother. But Latika says no. She elects to stay with Salim, the door closes, and Jamal and Latika do not see each other for a number of years. She does it to save Jamal, but what does this say? That she is only a victim of circumstance, that she has to accept the inevitable in order to preserve others. When Jamal is on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Salim is the one who lets Latika out of the compound to escape.




But she is not simply a plot device--something that sets her clearly apart from other one-woman-shows. She has inner conflict between the choices self-preservation and love. When Jamal and Latika are finally reunited after many years, though she spurns Jamal at first she runs away from the life she's basically been forced into (the mistress of a very powerful gangster) but is captured and immediately brought back. She does fight back, recieving a rather nasty slash on the face with a knife and is pulled kicking and screaming back to the compound. There's something to be said for a lone girl standing up to a mob boss by running away.

And one must acknowledge Jamal and Latika's relationship, which is the factor that makes this movie an honorable mention. Jamal is willing to do anything for Latika. And Latika is willing to do anything for Jamal. It isn't about Jamal saving Latika, it's about finding and convincing Latika. It's about love, not roles or getting swept off your feet. The result is somewhat analogous to if both Romeo and Juliet had taken the potion and ended up in the crypt together. It's earnest, authentic, and most of all: equal. At one point, Latika says something along the lines of "I was sure we'd only be happy together in death." But it's obvious that because they are so wholly committed to one another that they somehow defy the scores of odds against them.

That being said, Slumdog Millionaire still fails the Bechdel test. But I give it an honorable mention--a film still worth checking out.