Slumdog hit the trifecta

NPR's OnPoint with Tom Ashbrook today had an hour-long segment on Slumdog Millionaire. (You can listen on their web page.)

There was a question whether Indian movies deal with the poverty and the realism in the same way. Somebody asked whether the Indian government will be upset about the police brutality. There have indeed been many Indian movies that showed poverty, police brutality, and the universal urge to get ahead. An example, in addition to Madhur Bhandarkar's Traffic Signal, was Govind Nihalani's Ardh Satya (1983). Commentators who claim that India does not produce such movies are simply wrong and are being unkind to Indian directors.

But such movies have not done well at the box office in India, and I doubt that Slumdog will do well there, either. What makes money with Indians (and the Indian diaspora) is the dream-like melodrama with songs, hot dances, and a poor storyline.

Slumdog hit the trifecta: it dealt with the hard subject matter as part of an uplifting story (Simon Beaufoy gets the credit here), it has excellent production values and a clear vision that can hook in Western audiences (Danny Boyle is primarily responsible for this), and it was backed by a Hollywood studio (both Warner and Fox Searchlight picked it up), which gave it the exposure.

So now, it's showing on many more screens. Go see it. And even if the first few scenes are hard to take, just sit through them.