Best Pictures #36:
2016 (89th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee
It’s odd that Lion
is a film based on a true story, yet its premise seems familiar: a young man
searches for the family he was separated from as a young boy. Yet, the events
in Lion are so improbable-but-true
that you can’t help but be surprised and awed at how the life its main
character, Saroo Brierly, unfolded. Lion
tugs at your heartstrings and stirs up emotions in all the ways you would
expect and… it works. If you cry at movies, you’ll likely feel the tears flow
while watching Lion and that’s okay.
There are two distinct parts to Lion. In the first half, we see little Saroo living with his mother
and older brother in a poor rural village in India. His older brother, Guddu,
takes random chores and odd jobs to help support their family. One night, a new
job means traveling by train at night. Saroo is eager and excited to help, and
Guddu reluctantly brings him along. Guddu leaves Saroo at a train station and
tells him to wait while he sees about the job. Saroo falls asleep and wakes up
in the middle of the night to find the train station deserted. He calls out for
his brother and looks for him on an out of service train which springs into
service and takes him thousands of miles away from his home.
Young Sunny Pawar, who plays Saroo as a child, is remarkably
good on screen. His wide-eyed precociousness helps him survive on the streets
of Calcutta where he doesn’t speak the local language and can’t pronounce the
name of his hometown. He finds his way into an orphanage that seems too similar
to a prison, but it is here that he is adopted by an Australian couple played
by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham.
A jump in time takes us to the second part of the film. As a
young man, Saroo, now played by Dev Patel, feels more Australian than Indian.
He is disconnected from his Indian heritage until a chance sense memory
inspires him to track down his original home and mother and brother. It is at
this point that Lion treads close to cliché territory. Dev Patel has many
scenes where he is moody, depressed, and conflicted about his quest. Does
searching for his real mother mean he’s ungrateful to his adoptive mother? The
movie seems more concerned with the mechanics of how he finds out where his
childhood village in India is (with much internet research and Google Earth),
than with what is going on inside of the characters. Older Saroo’s emotions,
which should be driving the second half of Lion,
feel more obligatory than earned. That’s not to say that when the big scenes in
this movie come they don’t bring pathos. The final scenes of Lion are genuinely moving.
I wouldn’t say that Lion
is an uneven film, but from a technical standpoint the best part of Lion is young Saroo’s near dialogue free
journey through the streets of Calcutta. He encounters uncaring adults,
seemingly kind but actually sinister adults, and journeys by foot in a
direction that he hopes will take him home. Director Garth Davis keeps the
camera and the audience at a distance from young Saroo, giving this sequence the
feel of a documentary. Every unlikely encounter young Saroo has seems
unfortunately believable. It is a piece of incredible filmmaking that the rest
of Lion doesn’t equal.
Dev Patel has some good scenes of emotional dialogue with
Kidman and Rooney Mara, playing his supportive girlfriend. Mara is good, as
always, but doesn’t have much else to do aside from be supportive. The actors
handle these scenes well—Patel and Kidman have picked up Supporting Actor and
Actress Oscar nominations, respectively. It is their interactions that keep the
audience engaged. This is ultimately an uplifting and heartwarming story and
the sentiment doesn’t feel forced. You may feel like you’ve seen this kind of
movie before, and I’m sure you have, but Lion
is still worth watching.
Nominees: Iain Canning, Angie Fielder, Emile Sherman,
producers
Director: Garth Davis
Screenplay: Luke Davies, based on the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley and
Larry Buttrose
Cast: Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara
Production Companies: See-Saw Films, Aquarius Films, Screen
Australia, Sunstar Entertainment, The Weinstein Company
Distributor: The Weinstein Company, Transmission Films,
Entertainment Film Distributors
Release Date: November 25th, 2016
Total Nominations: 6, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Adapted Screenplay-Luke Davies,
Supporting Actor-Dev Patel, Supporting Actress-Nicole Kidman,
Cinematography-Greig Fraser, Original Score-Dustin O'Halloran, Volker
Bertelmann
No comments:
Post a Comment