[hackernewds]

You're using "Slumdog Millionaire" in the same context that Indians here despise the movie for. Using it as a pretext for focusing on the poverty in India as almost a fetishized poking from the West (ironically by the British)

[UIUC_06]

I haven't actually been to India, but I'm reliably informed that there IS some poverty there. Is that incorrect?

[svat]

As someone wrote:[1]

> Let’s say I made a movie about the US where an African-American boy born in the hood, has his mother sell him to a pedophile pop icon, after which he gets molested by a priest from his church, following which he gets tied up to the back of a truck and dragged on the road by KKK clansmen. Then he is arrested and sodomized by a policeman with a rod, after which he is attacked by a gang of illegal immigrants, and then uses these life experiences to win “Beauty and The Geek”.

> Even though each of these incidents have actually happened in the United States of America, I would be accused of spinning a fantastic yarn that has no grounding in reality, that has no connection to the “American experience” and my motivations would be questioned, no matter how cinematically spectacular I made my movie.

[1]: https://greatbong.net/2008/12/29/slumdog-millionaire-the-rev...

[BeetleB]

If it's entertaining, I'd watch that movie. It'll be a lot better than most Hollywood movies, and frankly, most Hollywood movies are pretty far off from reality (almost every movie involving the police or detectives is crazy unrealistic).

I'm not a fan of Slumdog Millionaire, but that's mostly because it's a poor story, and one that could have been a great one. Arguing it's portrayal deviates like crazy from reality is, well, like most other Hollywood movies.

(Yes, yes I know it's not a Hollywood movie).

[UIUC_06]

+1 on the Hollywood trashing.

Whether something is a "good story" is hard to be objective about. It depends heavily on whether the actors sell it or not. Why do you say Slumdog is a poor story?

"Poor boy makes good" is the plot of a zillion movies and books. The audience knows going in that he's going to get rich and/or get the girl. It's how that either works or doesn't.

[BeetleB]

They story had many interesting arcs that could have been richer, but halfway through it was clear there wasn't any interest in developing them, and that it was just about finding/connecting with the girl. Also, the fact that the trivia questions always seemed to align with his accidental experiences was just not that interesting.

A story about a poor boy making it big by things other than "always being lucky" would have been better.

[gamblor956]

We must have watched a very different movie...

He wasn't lucky. In fact the point of the movie was that the totality of his crappy life experiences before the trivia game ultimately led to him making it big. Essentially, it was a metaphor for karma.

(Spoiler: he almost died several times, his mom and brother died, his friend was sexually abused and he only narrowly escaped similar fates by running away, and he was working as an entry level food cart guy at the present day of the movie. He was beaten by the cops after his initial success at the show. What part of this do you consider lucky? )

[UIUC_06]

OK. I've forgotten most of it, except for the, umm, "memorable" scenes.

[UIUC_06]

It would probably be a flop in India, but I'm not the best person to judge that.

I think depictions of the US in overseas movies are pretty much as silly as that, though. Everything takes place in very rich or very poor parts of NYC or LA.

As for "I would probably be accused" -- maybe in India. In the US it wouldn't even rate a review.

[jlg23]

No, that is not incorrect; but there also is much more.

[gamblor956]

My family back in India loves Slumdog Millionaire. It's a relatively accurate portrayal of poverty in India.

The American equivalent was Hillbilly Elegy. The book was well reviewed (though the movie adaptation was not), and friends who grew up poor described it as relatively faithful to the general experience of growing up poor in rural America.

[fsckboy]

> "Slumdog Millionaire" in the same context that Indians here despise the movie for.

to put that in context, Indians here and there don't seem to despise the film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_from_India_and_the_I...