Lion - Loved It

Starring: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara
Run Time: 1 hour, 58 minutes

The Movie

​Lion is a beautifully filmed movie that tells us the life story of Saroo, a young boy who gets lost from his family in the overpopulated country of India. When he was five years old, he always wanted to help out his mother and brother by working. The film starts off with Saroo and his brother Gudu stealing coal off a train to make some money for milk and food. That same night, Saroo wants to go with his brother to work in the fields to earn more money for the family. Because it is the night shift, Saroo is unable to stay awake, and Gudu leaves him on the bench at the train station to sleep. Sometime later, Saroo wakes up and doesn’t know where Gudu is. He boards a parked train and falls back asleep. In the morning, the train is moving and all the doors are locked – he is trapped. A couple of days go by, and he finds himself among the busy streets of Calcutta and unable to communicate with anyone.
 
Finally he meets a young woman who speaks Hindu (the language that Saroo speaks) and offers to help him find his Mum. Pretty soon though, we discover that she is not a nice woman, and Saroo flees to the streets. For a couple months he lives on the streets, scavenging for food and water wherever he can get it, and then he meets a young man who is not bad. He is taken to the police station and then put in an orphanage as they search for his Mum. No one seems to have heard of the place he is from, so no progress is made on the search. One day, Mrs. Sood speaks with Saroo and tells him that a nice family from Australia wants to take care of him. Because of the horrible conditions of the orphanage and the fact that they are unable to find his Mum, Saroo reluctantly goes to Australia to meet his new family.

​From here it seems he adjusts just fine, and we are taken into the future 20 years, when Saroo is a young man and going to school. He meets a woman whom he falls in love with, and they are at a party one day. The hosts being Indian, there are many Indian treats to enjoy. Saroo sees something that reminds   him   of  his   childhood 

and his mother and brother. At this point, things start to spiral downward for him. He becomes obsessed with finding who he is, where he came from, and who is birth mother actually was. Eventually, he is able to track down his home town, Ganesh Talei (he had been pronouncing it incorrectly his whole life), and travels the distance to see his birth family one more time in a very emotional and impactful scene.

​Liked its & Hated its

​I liked this movie throughout. The acting was phenomenal during the entire thing. Sunny Pawar was able to portray (as to what I’m assuming it would have been like in real life) the scared, lost, little boy that is living on the streets, dirty, and hungry. Dev Patel also did a fabulous job as older Saroo. How his emotions change from happy to sad and lost again in a matter of a second was wonderful. Especially the fact that he was slowly going crazy from not being able to 1. Remember where he was from and 2. Find where he was from. I would imagine that it would be difficult only using google maps, I’m surprised it hadn’t changed too much in the past 25 years. The only thing I didn’t like about this movie was Saroo’s mothers hair (Nicole Kidman), I couldn’t handle it, but I guess that was the style in Australia back in the late 1980s. Her emotional speech to Saroo towards the end of the movie really showed the audience her love for her children, and how she wanted to help the world. Even if it was just by adopting a child in need, that was her way of giving back to the world. 

​Rating

​This movie was great, and I can definitely see why it was nominated for so many Oscars. The acting was great, the filmography was great, and the story itself was great. I loved watching what Saroo became regardless of what happened to him as a child, he grew up to be a kind and smart young man. What saddens me is that he grew up with a family in Australia while his birth family always looked for him, not knowing what happened. I think this was his man reasoning behind going back and finding his Mum and sister and brother. I’m glad that he was able to. I’m going to give this movie a “Loved it” and highly recommend it for all you DFP veiwers. Now on to the next Oscar Nominee, if this is any indication what the other movies are going to be like, this is going to be fun. 
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