Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire Movie Analysis

Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle is a breathless, exciting and heartbreaking story that tells the story of Jamal Malik, a Mumbai orphan who grows up in poverty and achieves success after participating in the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Jamal grows up in a

In Mumbai in 2006, eighteen-year-old Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former street child (child Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, adolescent Tanay Chheda) from the Juhu slum, is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and is one question away from the grand prize. However, before the Rs. 20 million question, he is detained and interrogated by the police, who suspect him of cheating because of the impossibility of a simple "slumdog" knowing all the answers. Jamal recounts, through flashbacks, the incidents in his life which provided him with each answer. These flashbacks tell the story of Jamal, his brother Salim (adult Madhur Mittal, adolescent Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, child Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail), and Latika (adult Freida Pinto, adolescent Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar, child Rubina Ali).

The story of Jamal's life includes his managing, at age five, to obtain the autograph of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, which his brother then sells, followed immediately by the death of his mother during the Bombay Riots. As they flee the riot, Salim and Jamal meet Latika, another child from their slum. Salim is reluctant to take her in, but Jamal suggests that she could be the third musketeer, a character from the Alexandre Dumas novel, whose name they do not know. The three are found by Maman (Ankur Vikal), a gangster who tricks and then trains street children into becoming beggars. When Jamal, Salim, and Latika learn Maman is blinding children in order to make them more profitable as singing beggars, they flee by jumping onto a departing train. Latika catches up and takes Salim's hand, but Salim purposely lets go, and she is recaptured by the...