*Slumdog Millionaire* sold out!
*Arthur J Pais | *November 17, 2008 14:33 IST
*Last Updated: *November 17, 2008 15:12 IST
A scene from *Slumdog Millionaire*.
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** <http://www.rediff.com/forwards.html>
All eyes it seems are on the triumphant American release of *Quantum of
Solace* which has hijacked $70 million in just three days, far exceeding the
Hollywood expectations. But discerning eyes will also see the news about the
under dog movie *Slumdog Millionaire* not only getting the some of the best
reviews in recent years but also doing brisk business in arthouses.
The Danny Boyle directed film, focusing on three slum children in Mumbai and
their tryst with fate as grown-ups, grossed a highly promising $420,000 in
just five days in 10 theatres in North American cities. Playing in New York,
DC, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, it enjoyed several sold
out shows on Saturday. It is adding 22 screens next Friday as it expands to
more cities including Boston, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, and Phoenix. And
by the first week of December, as the awards and years-best films season is
approaching, it could be on 500 screens.
- *Also Read: Making Slumdog Millionaire truly
Indian<http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/nov/12making-slumdog-millionaire-truely-indian.htm>
*
'Four stars simply aren't enough for Danny Boyle's *Slumdog Millionaire*,
which just may be the most entertaining movie I've ever labled a masterpiece
in these pages,' wrote Lou Lumnick in *The New York Post*. The headline for
the piece read: SLUMDERFUL!
Boyle, known for the gritty *Trainspotting* and the magical fable *Millions*,
has never made anything like *Slumdog* in his two decades in movies. And
reviewers were quick to point out this important factor.
[image: A scene from Slumdog Millionaire]THIS 'MILLIONAIRE' IS WELL WORTH
ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD.
Giving the film four stars out of four, Lumnick added: 'Great movies
transport the audience, and this one left me floating on air after two
viewings. I can't wait to see it again -- and share it with others.'
Made for just about $15 million -- peanuts compared to an average cost of
$80 million for a Hollywood film -- *Slumdog* will start barking in European
theatres starting in January.
- *Directing Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Anil
Kapoor*<http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/sep/11tiff.htm>
Though the film is running only in a handful of cities, the reviews in the
national publications such as *USA Today* has raised its profile across the
country.
Claudia Puig too gave it four stars out of a max four in *USA Today*.
'The exhilarating and sweeping *Slumdog Millionaire* is one in a million,'
she wrote. 'Director Danny Boyle's riveting and kaleidoscopic tale, based on
Vikas Swarup's debut novel *Q and A*, is exquisitely adapted to the screen
by Simon Beaufoy. A Dickensian story, *Slumdog* is both universal and
quintessentially Indian. *Some of the film is in Hindi, which heightens a
sense of authenticity, as does the musical score (A R Rahman). *
- *Also Read: **From Full Monty to Slumdog
Millionaire*<http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/sep/22simon.htm>
The movie, starring Anil Kapoor
[Images<http://search.rediff.com/imgsrch/default.php?MT=anil kapoor>
] as the devious quiz show host, Dev Patel and Freida
Pinto<http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2008/jun/16slid1.htm>as the
lovers separated in their younger years, and Irrfan Khan
[Images <http://search.rediff.com/imgsrch/default.php?MT=irrfan khan>] as
the sadistic police Inspector has India's Loveleen Tandan as the
co-director.
*The Washington Post* hailed the film as a 'a modern-day rags-to-rajah
fable.'
'It won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival
earlier this year,' the newspaper wrote, 'and it's easy to see why. With its
timely setting of a swiftly globalizing India and, more specifically, the
country's own version of the *Who Wants to be a Millionaire* TV show, *Slumdog
Millionaire* plays like Charles Dickens for the 21st century.'
It added: 'But in this particular saga, the coal dust of Victorian England [
Images <http://search.rediff.com/imgsrch/default.php?MT=england>] has been
replaced by the Tata fumes and computer-screen glow that envelop a country
in the throes of profound economic and cultural change.'
- *Oscar buzz for Anil
Kapoor-starrer*<http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/sep/09slum.htm>
'Boyle borrows heavily from Bollywood, and every dazzling frame seems ready
to overflow -- with people, emotions and a riot of color,' Elizabeth
Weitzman, wrote in *Daily News*. 'The romance is shamelessly soap-operatic,
and the mood swings wildly from despair to joy. But when Boyle pulls back to
show us his grand vision, it's a stunner. And everything suddenly falls into
place, as if this uncommonly daring film was fated to work from the very
start.'
Even the tough critic Manohla Dargis of *The New York Times* surrendered to
the film..
Calling it bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie, she wrote: 'It's an
undeniably attractive package, a seamless mixture of thrills and tears,
armchair tourism (the Taj Mahal
[Images<http://search.rediff.com/imgsrch/default.php?MT=taj mahal>
] makes a guest appearance during a sprightly interlude) and crackerjack
professionalism. Both the reliably great Irrfan Khan *(A Mighty Heart)*, as
a sadistic detective, and the Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, as the preening
game-show host, run circles around the young Mr Patel, an agreeable enough
if vague centerpiece to all this coordinated, insistently happy chaos.
At the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, Roger Ebert
of *Chicago Sun-Times* and a widely syndicated reviewer was among the very
first to write that *Slumdog *could be a serious contender for Oscar
nominations.
- *Also Read: Slumdog Millionaire wins at Tororonto film
fest<http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/sep/15tiff.htm>
*
Reviewing the film recently, he gave it a maximum four stars. It 'hits the
ground running,' wrote the critic who has championed many films by Indian
directors including Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta. 'This is a breathless,
exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time, about a
Mumbai orphan who rises from rags to riches on the strength of his lively
intelligence. The film's universal appeal will present the real India to
millions of moviegoers for the first time.'
What is the real India according to Ebert, the readers would surely want to
know. There is the India of extreme poverty, he wrote. 'The India of Mother
Teresa still exists. Because it is side-by-side with the new India, it is
easily seen. People living in the streets. A woman crawling from a cardboard
box,' he explained. 'Men bathing at a fire hydrant. Men relieving themselves
by the roadside. You stand on one side of the Hooghly River, a branch of the
Ganges [Images <http://search.rediff.com/imgsrch/default.php?MT=ganges>]that
runs through Kolkata, and your friend tells you, "On the other bank
millions of people live without a single sewer line."'
'On the other hand is the world's largest middle class, mostly lower-middle,
but all the more admirable,' he continued *'Slumdog Millionaire* bridges
these two Indias by cutting between a world of poverty and the Indian
version of *Who Wants to be a Millionaire*.'
Come Friday, many more reviews will follow and the film could cross the $1
million barrier, and settle down for a long, sleeper-hit run.
