by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
The New Republic
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The critics forget a few facts. The film is based on the novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat. Although the director and the scriptwriter, both British, made changes in their adaptation of the story, they kept the essentials: An Indian slum orphan is arrested for getting too many answers right in a TV quiz show and the subsequent narration of his journey reveals to us that his correct answers did not come from cheating but from street wisdom picked up in a succession of experiences that attest to his instinct for survival. Not to mention all the on- and off-camera Indians associated with the movie, who feel proud of their role in it.
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The charge that "Slumdog Millionaire" exploits Mumbai's poverty is so absurd that by the same token Charles Dickens' entire body of work would have to be invalidated as a defamation of 19th-century England. Like all accomplished stories, "Slumdog Millionaire" is probably resonating with audiences because it gives a glimpse of complex truths and tells us something about ourselves that we had trouble defining. In that sense, the Motion Picture Academy did not honor a "foreign" film, but one strangely familiar.
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