LION (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, Abhi Shek Bharate
DIRECTOR: Garth Davis
GENRE: Drama

The longing for "home"--wherever and whatever that might be--is universal, as we learned in E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Adapted from the memoir The Longing For Home by Saroo Brierley, Lion chronicles the amazing story of a young boy separated from his family at the age of five, who follows a harrowing, circuitous route to find the place of his origin once again.

The young Saroo (Sunny Pawar) lives with his mother and older brother, Guddu (Abhi Shek Bharate), who eke out a hardscrabble existence in rural India. One day, while hopping trains with Guddu, Saroo becomes separated from his brother and mistakenly ends up on a train that carries him a thousand miles in the wrong direction. He disembarks in Calcutta, where he joins other children who sleep on the streets. He ends up in an orphanage, and is later adopted by a white Australian couple. Now he's a very long way from home. But his new mom, Sue (Nicole Kidman), and her husband love him dearly, and he grows to care for his adoptive parents as well.

Lion is a film in two distinctive parts. The first section is the tense and action filled story of the young Saroo. The second is a more cerebral tale of Saroo as a young man (Dev Patel) who is haunted by the memory of his family of origin--sensing that they have been searching for him all these years.

Saroo begins a laborious internet search, exacerbated by the fact he doesn't remember the proper spelling of his village, or have any idea where it is located. At first, he doesn't want to reveal to his adoptive parents what he's up to, not wishing to hurt them. But it eventually comes out. It has to.

Dev Patel, who has matured greatly as a serious actor, gives a first-rate performance. And Oscar winner Nicole Kidman--in my opinion there is no finer actress on the silver screen today--delivers a multi-layered, emotionally searing turn (in limited screen time) as a mother who only wants her son to be happy. The lovely Rooney Mara--also with a host of nominations and awards to her credit--has a similarly small part as Saroo's Australian girlfriend, Lucy, who rides that emotional roller coaster along with Sue when she learns of Saroo's intentions to make the trans-continental journey to connect with his roots. I always admire big stars who sign on for relatively small roles in certain films because it tells me their egos are firmly under control!

With gorgeous cinematography from Grieg Fraser, Lion is part adventure tale and travelogue (capturing the teeming beauty of India), and part love story in the many manifestations of the word that exist. A film that is surprising in its depth. And the ending will knock you out.

Suffice it to say that if you don't carry a box of tissues into the theater with you, you'll be sorry.

Grade:   A


JILL'S TAKE

Make that two boxes of tissues! (I was bawling at the end, unable to be objective about anything.) Despite its misleading title, Lion is a cinematic gem. There's nary a lion on-screen unless you count the courageous five-year-old Saroo, who survives in a city where he doesn't even speak the language. The child actor who plays him (Sunny Pawar) is unabashedly beautiful. Hell, I'd adopt him and I don't even like kids!

It's always difficult when a film has two definite storylines but, in this case, director Garth Davis did a masterful job holding my interest in both. He has very few movie credits, as he is better known as an internationally successful commercials director. But after Lion, I'll bet a lot of rupees his directorial skills will be in serious demand. The screenplay was created by the original author Saroo Brierly and Luke Davies. After seeing the film, I'd like to read the book. I'm sure his love story was explored in  more detail. For me, in the film version, it felt tacked on. I resented Lucy's neediness (i.e. love for Saroo), as I was way too caught up in his homeward journey to care about it. I also got impatient with his Google-searching. Yes, it was necessary. But how visually interesting is seeing fingers typing on a keyboard?

Still, this film is absolutely worth seeing. Aside from the emotional impact Lion has on its audiences, the scenery (from aerial shots of a desolate countryside, to the stampeding masses of human bodies in Calcutta) will take you out of your own story and into his.

Grade:  A

THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Devika Bhise
DIRECTOR: Mathew Brown
GENRE: Biopic/Drama/Art House

The language of higher mathematics can be intimidating to anyone who looks at it and sees gobbledygook, which would be most of us, and that could be the first thing that might put you off of checking out The Man Who Knew Infinity. But don't allow a few equations that fill up entire blackboards and then start reaching around the block discourage you.  (Though attempting to "prove" a theory in this abstract and seemingly endless manner can appear, at least on the surface, to be unrelated to anything that has to do with life in the real world--a highly advanced form of mental masturbation as it were--but what do I know? Though I can point to numerous theories through the ages that were generally regarded as "proven" that were later shown to be false. Imagine filling up journal upon journal with these equations--shouting EUREKA!-- and then some smart-ass comes along and says, oh, but you forgot...) Fortunately, there are no attempts to explain any of that esoteric stuff to the lay person here, as mathematics is really secondary to what The Man Who Knew Infinity is about.

In 1913, Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a humble accountant and self-taught mathematical genius from India, travels to Trinity College in Cambridge to meet and study with the brilliant G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), the man who would become his mentor. Ramanujan has put everything on the line--leaving his beautiful wife and his mother behind to fulfill his vision of getting his theories published.

Ramanujan, today, is regarded as one of the most influential minds in the field of mathematics. But his journey to that revered status was not an easy one. He met resistance at every turn from the establishment of old fart British profs--entrenched in their positions and their thinking. When a brilliant mind meets another brilliant mind and recognizes that this other brilliant mind might just be more brilliant than itself, the result is professional jealousy of mathematical proportions!  Not to mention being upstaged by a young brown-skinned upstart from "the colonies" in an era when racism was just the accepted order of things. Ramanujan must not only fight against bigotry and closed minds, but the anguish he feels from being away from his family. He is fortunate to have a champion (Hardy) in his corner.

The Man Who Knew Infinity is the proverbial root-for-the-underdog tale of struggle and redemption. Jeremy Irons seems made for his role as the eccentric professor Hardy. Dev Patel is on familiar ground once again as a somewhat bewildered soul pitted against the odds--see Slumdog Millionaire and Life Of Pi. It's a pleasant enough way to kill a couple hours (actually 1 hour and 48 minutes), but there is no new ground being broken here. Except in mathematics, of course.

Grade: B

JILL'S TAKE

Lord knows, I tried to follow this tale of endless equations and English academe. But The Man Who Knew Infinity was no Goodbye, Mister Chips. (Both versions.) Jeremy Iron's character is the epitome of an introverted intellectual who can barely look anyone in the eye. So it's difficult to relate to, or even like this inwardly-centered man. As for his Indian prodigy? Ramanujan's mathematical brilliance is also hard for the average viewer to understand or get excited about. Hence, I found myself in the unenviable position of nodding off occasionally, praying I didn't drool on myself or someone else!

That being said, when I did manage to stay awake and follow the trials and tribulations of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the film held my interest. Sort of. As with so many movies these days, The Man Who Knew Infinity was based on a real person. If that real person's life is steeped in drama, the result is usually a good movie. But so much of this film had to do with coming up with proofs to back up equations. And there's not a whole lot of drama in that....

There was a bit of drama back home in India when his mama hid her son's letters from his wife, convinced that if she showed them to her (and she joined him in England), he would never return home. Naturally his wife assumed he had forgotten her. It was such a minor plot but one that, thankfully, woke me up for two seconds.

Grade: D

CHAPPIE (2015)

Rated: R

STARS: Dev Patel,  Sharlito Copley, Hugh Jackman, Watkin Tudor Jones, Yolandi Visser,  Sigourney Weaver
DIRECTOR: Neil Blomkamp
GENRE: Action/Sci-fi/Fantasy


It's the near future--so near that nothing much looks different except for the droids that now comprise a segment of the Johannesburg police force. (If this ever happens for real, it might improve the public perception of the cops...anything's worth a try). Young inventor Deon (Dev Patel), designs them.  But he's not stopping there. He wants to create the first robot with genuine artificial intelligence. He succeeds (be careful what you wish for) in the form of "Chappie," who starts out as a mental infant, but he's a really quick study and before you know it he's mastering the language and painting like that dude on TV with the big Afro.

When Chappie is kidnapped by some nasty-ass thugs who think they can use him to pull off a big heist, the plot kicks into high gear.  Deon falls into the clutches of the gangsters too, and though he gets roughed-up and threatened, he takes a stand for good parenting and implores his highly impressionable creation not to do bad things. Meanwhile, rival engineer Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), who works for the same weapons manufacturer as Deon, has had the funding cut for his own attack robot, Moose. He makes it his mission to take Chappie out of commission, putting himself and Moose on a collision course with Deon and his brainchild in an epic CGI battle that rivals the one in writer-director Neil Blomkamp's District 9. In both films, Blomkamp is making a point about heroism and laying it all on the line when the odds are stacked against you. And I've never seen it done in more soul-stirring fashion. 

 Despite all that, Chappie is played for laughs as often as not. It's cute and endearing when the gangsters teach him to pepper his speech with ghetto expletives (yes, a robot spouting the MF word is funny because it's so unexpected), and when they hang all this bling around his neck to make him one bad lookin' dude. The only thing I felt was over the top at first was Chappie's voice. Instead of your normal monotone droid voice, Chappie's takes on a human quality--first mimicking that of a scared toddler, then going through the other stages of development until he grows into an emotional adult. This made him a little too human for my willing suspension of disbelief to kick in. I mean, sooner or later he's gonna start thinking about women, and then he looks down at himself and tries to figure out just how that's gonna work... er, forget I mentioned it . But it's impossible to watch this film and not be won over by the little guy. The way we were won over by E. T. 

Chappie poses thoughtful questions about the nature of consciousness--even drawing parallels with reincarnation--as a robot with a dying battery finds himself in a race against time to find a new body to inhabit. 

I walked out of the theater thinking, Well... that was pretty wild!

Grade:  B +


JILL'S TAKE

It's more fun for the reader when Tim and I disagree. And being un-fond of futuristic, robot-infested films, I was positive we would. But I soon forgot all about Chappie's outer appearance and became totally caught up in his life-threatening adventure. When he was being beaten up by a gang of homeless hooligans, my heart went out to him. When he was torn between doing the right thing or seeking his bad-ass daddy's approval, I empathized. Just like I teared up when ET put his glowing finger on Elliot's forehead and said, "I'll...be...right...here." I don't know who deserves the most credit for making these non humans human. Is it the director? The writer? The digital miracle workers? I suppose it's a combination of all three. I was even reminded of that volleyball in Cast Away that Tom Hanks named Wilson, how real that inanimate object became!

Sure, there were holes in Chappie.(The script not his body.) Hugh Jackman's character was ill-defined and cartoonish in his need for revenge. And Deon, Chappie's nerdy inventor, seemed irrationally brave considering his line of work. But I was totally caught up in the story; how seeking approval makes even robots do the damndest things. Scriptwriters Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell were spot on when it comes to showing us what a huge influence parent figures  have—be they criminals or computer geeks—on a young, untested mind.

Sorry, folks. But I'm with Tim on this one.

Grade: B +

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2012)

Rated: PG-13


STARS: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup
DIRECTOR: John Madden
GENRE: Comedy/Drama


A colorful assemblage of "elderly" Brits heads off to India where their retirement dollars will go further. Awaiting them is the "newly remodeled" (according to the brochure) Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. They arrive to find a structure that is crumbling and in disrepair. Sonny, (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire ) the young, buoyant  hotel manager has good intentions and a dream of renovating the place, but he needs to secure some funding. Some of the lodgers will make the best of it, and some will utter grouchy, mean-spirited things. In the end, each will find something or someone they've been searching for, and be transformed.


An ensemble cast as large as this one could be unwieldy, but there are many familiar names here, and I find it  easier to remember a character's story when it's a face that I recognize. These are stock characters, for the most part, but it doesn't make their stories any less poignant or compelling.


There's Jean and Doug (Penelope Wilton & Bill Nighy) the not so happily married couple who lost their savings when they invested it in their daughters business venture. Nighy, of course, is a great comic presence, but he's more subtly engaged with it here. 


Muriel, (Maggie Smith) a retired housekeeper who doesn't like India initially--maybe something to do with her being a racist and needing a hip replacement. 


Evelyn, (Judi Dench) a recent widow and all alone. 


Madge (Celia Imrie) is a wealthy woman on the prowl for a husband.


Norman, (Ronald Pickup)  an aging lecher (or "horny old dude" in contemporary parlance) on the prowl for one night stands.  


But the most poignant of the pensioners' story lines belongs to Graham, (Tom Wilkinson) a high court judge who grew up in India, and is back to find a man he loved when they were both teenagers, and hasn't seen since.  


A subplot involves Sonny and his true love, Sunainia, (Tena Desae) whom his domineering mother doesn't approve of. She wants her son to enter an arranged marriage. It's a clash of traditional and contemporary Indian mores. Things will come to a head, and Sonny will face his moment of truth with his mother.  


Beautifully shot and deftly paced, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel  captures the bustle, the color, and the seductive allure of a land where cows and elephants saunter down the street--and the truly wise men are the ones who know enough not to follow  too closely behind either one.


 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the best exotic movie I've seen since...well... Slumdog Millionaire.


Grade:  A

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

"Slumdog," which swept the major categories at the Academy Awards, fascinates on a number of levels. Is it a drama? Is it a fantasy? Is it a musical?

Yes!

The editing, cinematography, and music (by M.I.A. and A.R. Rahman) all shine. Then there's the fresh-faced cast of unknowns from another land that seems to have captured America's fancy in true Beatle-esque fashion. Then we have the rags-to-riches plot.

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is an orphan who, through an improbable twist of fate, finds himself a contestant on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Through a series of amazing coincidences, he has LIVED the answers to the questions that are being posed to him on the show. (This is where your "willing suspension of disbelief" will come in handy.) The momentum builds as Malik embarks on a harrowing damsel-in-distress search for his childhood friend while running afoul of the smarmy game show host and the authorities who aren't convinced he's legitimately coming up with the correct answers.

The film builds to a fist pumping climax that gave me goose bumps and made me feel the same way I felt the first time I saw Rocky. And frankly, with the current state of the economy and Rush Limbaugh bellowing that he wants Barack Obama to fail, we could use more films like this one that connect us with the indomitable human spirit.

GRADE: A