Lion is one of
those movies that begins strong, slows down significantly around halfway
through, and picks up somewhat towards the end.
Yet that first half of the film is magnificent.
In 1986, five-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) and his family
live in a small village in India and struggle daily to put food on the
table. His brother Guddu (Abhishek
Bharate) often steals coal from trains and engages in other schemes to raise money. Their mother, Kamla (Priyanka Bose), makes a
living through collecting rocks. When
adding on the time spent raising her three children, such grueling labor appears
almost to be too much for her.
One evening Saroo convinces Guddu to let him go along with his
brother on one of his sojourns towards the local train station. Saroo too tired to continue following his
brother lays down on the bench for a nap.
When Saroo wakes up later, he enters a train in the station to see what
is inside. Saroo ends up locked inside the train and unable
to get off. The train then leaves the
station heading east, and Saroo is unable to escape the train until its arrival
in Calcutta – approximately1500 kilometers away.
Raised in the heart of India, Saroo is unable to speak the
Bengal dialect. Nor is he able to accurately
tell anyone exactly where he came from. After some misadventures, he ends up in an
orphanage where conditions are brutal.
However, a young Australian couple eventually adopts him. His new parents include Sue (Nicole Kidman)
and John (David Wenham). Later, the
couple also adopts another Indian boy named Mantosh. Unlike Saroo who seems to adopt easily to his
new home, Mantosh is emotionally troubled.
This ends the first half of the film. The second half involved a grownup Saroo (Dev
Patel), who seemingly does well in life but who is haunted by the family that
he left behind in India. Sue and John
are loving parents to Saroo. Saroo also
has a beautiful girlfriend named Lucy (Rooney Mara). Yet he is unhappy. He obsesses over where he came from and
eventually, through studying Google maps, discovers the location of his India
home – a village by the name of Ganesh Talai.
Saroo in 2012 then journeys to India and finds his biological mother and
sister still alive. Tragically, Guddu
had died back in 1986 when struck by a train.
Ironically, the child actors Sunny Pawar and Abhishek
Bharate provide more emotional punch to Lion
than any of the adult (and professional) actors save Nicole Kidman. Kidman’s acting, as well as a strong
storyline, is what keep the two halves of the film together. The two child actors play their roles
perfectly. Sunny Pawar brings warmth to his
role, and Abhishek Bharate is entirely believable as a street-smart kid who
cares deeply for his younger brother.
Dev Patel his role as the adult Saroo conventionally well. Rooney Mara as the girlfriend adds practically
nothing to the film.
There had to be a second half to complete this film. And at 118 minutes, the film moves along at a
good pace. Sadly, we lose the magic during
this second half that the child actors bring to the beginnings of the film. Inevitably, there was a letdown.
Still, the first half of the film shows remarkably well what
is both fascinating and sad about a great country like India. India consists of
beautiful people who in large part live in poverty. The photography of Lion portrays this well. We see
the beauty in the faces of Saroo’s family and fellow villagers. We see the poverty during the train trip to
Calcutta. This footage allows us to
understand why Saroo so long wants to return to his India family.
March 24, 2017
© Robert S. Miller 2017
