LION- ROARING SUCCESS

Image Source - IMDb

Just one stanza of a Hindi song or a two minute cameo appearance of an actor from the Hindi film industry in a Hollywood movie is enough to make me want to watch that film. When I saw the trailer of Lion at the Oscars’ in 2017, I couldn’t wait to watch it, but I missed watching it in the theatres. It aired on TV last week and I knew that I had to write a review on this one.

Many may recall the attention that Sunny Pawar, the unassuming and amiable little child that plays the protagonist in the movie, drew at the Oscars.

Lion is based on the book A Long way Home written by Saroo Brierly and is based on his life. 

The movie is about a 5 year old boy Saroo (Sunny Pawar) from Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India, a child of a labourer, who gets separated from his brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) at a railway station and ends up in a train that takes him all the way to Kolkata. Despite his frantic attempts, he is unable to get help from anyone to take him back to his place, ‘Ganestalay’. After facing a lot of travails and escaping from the clutches of child snatchers including the syrupy faced Noor (Tannishtha Chatterjee) who feeds him and bathes him only to make him presentable to Rama (Nazwazuddin Siddiqui), Saroo finally finds himself in a children’s home which is no better than the outside world. There are shady things happening in this place and Saroj Sood (Deepti Naval) has taken it upon herself to rescue the children from this place.

Saroo gets adopted by an Australian couple Sue and John Brierly (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and flies to Tasmania where he begins to settle in. The Brierlys adopt another boy from India, Mantosh who unlike Saroo has some difficulty adjusting with the family.

The story moves forward in time and Saroo is now 26 years old (played by Dev Patel). He is an Australian now right down to rooting for the Australian cricket team rather than the Indian. He moves to Melbourne to study hotel management where he meets Lucy (Rooney Mara). A meal with his Indian friends brings back memories from India and with Lucy’s encouragement Saroo begins to trace his roots to India using Google Earth. Whilst Saroo is drawn to India, at the same time, he is feeling conflicted wondering if tracing his biological mother would mean betraying his adoptive mother.

Will Saroo continue in his search for his hometown in India? Will he locate “Ganestalay”? Will he be reunited with his mother and brother?

When I started watching the movie, I was wondering what all the fuss about Sunny Pawar was. I had seen better child actors. But as the movie progresses, you find that there is something so endearing about Sunny. He isn’t “acting”, acting and it would appear that film has captured a real life incident as is and that Sunny is the real Saroo, a lost and confused 5 year old who somehow still manages to have his wits around him.

Lion received 6 Oscar nominations and won two BAFTAs. It is also the highest grossing Australian film of all time.

All actors including those with minor roles (Guddu, Mantosh) have done a wonderful job. A special mention to Nawazuddin, whose screen appearance is less than 2 minutes but sends chills down your spine.

Sunny Pawar, no doubt, is the star of the show. The film shows Sunny walking barefoot, covered in filth,  rummaging through all that garbage in search of food and gets you wondering how does one film such a scene so realistically!  His face looks unwashed, his eyes crusty and there’s dried mucous around his nose!

The film beautifully captures emotions of the actors. The mother’s anguish over her lost child, the blind hope of being finally traced by his mother, the joy of laying eyes on their adopted child who has travelled from across the world, the guilt of having led a comfortable life while your family may still be unaware of your survival, the conflict of having to choose biological over adopted...

The film doesn’t have many dialogues but manages to tell the story beautifully. The ending is bittersweet but then all’s well that ends well.

Throughout the entire movie, you wonder why the film is called Lion. I even thought it was because Dev Patel’s hair hangs loose from his head like a mane (!!!). The title of the movie is explained towards the end and I may have shed a tear or two.