Directed by: Garth Davis
Written by: Luke Davies, adapted from the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly
Starring: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara
IMDb Link
The 89th Academy Awards is coming up, and the nominations have been announced (See the full list here). As such, it's now a necessity for me to see every Best Picture nominee before the Awards' night. I've already seen Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, and La La Land, and of the five I haven't seen, Lion was the only one playing in a theatre close by.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
Lion tells a true story that takes a look at some important issues. We follow Saroo (played as a child by Sunny Pawar, and as an adult by Patel), a boy living a small village in India with his mother, brother and sister. While waiting for his brother to return, Saroo falls asleep on a train that doesn't stop moving for two days, and eventually ends up in Calcutta, about 1500 kilometres from his home. After suffering hardships on the streets, he is eventually taken to an orphanage, before being adopted and taken to Hobart, Tasmania to be raised by his new parents.
The film is at times heartbreaking, and this is in large part due to the two actors who play Saroo; Pawar is positively adorable, and it hurts a little every time something bad happens to him. He's an innocent little child, and you just want the scenes on the streets to end so that he can taken from danger. This is very intentional; the filmmakers leave you with the knowledge that these circumstances are not unique to Saroo. Patel handles the more complicated emotions Saroo experiences as an adult wonderfully; he struggles deeply with the feeling that he is missing a piece of his home, while trying his hardest to not seem ungrateful to his adoptive parents. Patel is very expressive and it makes his performance very convincing; this is helped by the fact that he absolutely nails the Australian accent.
The rest of the film is solid. Davis utilises the camera exactly how you'd hope in an intense human drama, focusing almost entirely on faces, while using wider and longer shots only to accentuate distance between characters. Lighting suits the tone very well, especially the nighttime scenes in Calcutta, as Saroo runs from kidnappers and finds sanctuary at a shrine; darkness is used to solidify moments of fear for Saroo's safety. There's also some fantastic editing in the second and third acts, as the film shows Patel struggling with his home sickness by fitting his long lost brother in to moments of his daily life, and cutting between near-identical shots of his actions and how they relate to his memories.
From a storytelling perspective, there were a few minor issues I had that seem to have come from the fact that this is a true story. There's an obvious need to maintain faith to what actually happened, but this sometimes left odd gaps and sudden changes. This in some ways makes the film more realistic, as life sometimes just throws things at us, but it also hampers the film's overall message, so I'm unsure how to feel about these slight problems. The first that comes to mind is Saroo's adoptive brother Mantosh. He's included in the film because the real Saroo has an actual adoptive brother named Mantosh, but in the film he doesn't have much use. There's some family-based drama surrounding him as he creates issues for his and Saroo's parents, but there's little resolution to the topic, (apart from a scene where Saroo apologises to a passed out Mantosh) and he seems simply forgotten about by film's end. There's also Saroo's girlfriend Lucy (Mara). Whilst I enjoyed Mara's performance, her character was strangely inconsistent, suggesting her support for Saroo but never really showing it, and like Mantosh she seems to be dropped from the plot after a certain point.
The Verdict: Parts of Lion will play your heartstrings like a fiddle. The themes of identity and the issues surrounding lost children in India are presented solemnly, with a message appealing to do work to stop the injustice; the film's goal is very well defined. Patel is brilliant of Saroo, capturing complex emotions and presenting a flawless accent. Because of the film's message, and because it has been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, I highly recommend going to see this film.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published January 28th, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment