Having recently paid less attention to the situation in Afghanistan than to most other things, I didn’t realize that Karzai was no longer in our favor. (Sorry, “our”.) Also, I find the Times style of printing Vice President Biden’s FULL name irritating. Though I suppose I should count my blessings: at least they don’t spell out Robinette. And finally, the penultimate paragraph of this review reads:
The central plot mechanism of “Slumdog Millionaire”—Jamal (Dev Patel), a poor kid from Mumbai, overcomes his ragamuffin past and achieves fame, wealth, and selfhood by answering questions on a high-stakes game show—feels both cheesy and rigid. The movie is a Dickensian fable, but didn’t David Copperfield have to work his way up the ladder? As Jamal thinks over the questions put to him on the show, moments from his early life float through his mind, and some wrenching event delivers the right answer to him. Apart from a nagging implausibility—how could every question link up with an old memory?—I object to the way that the director, Danny Boyle, orchestrates Jamal’s life. Everything is seen in a flash—the boy’s mother is beaten to death, a man is set on fire, tiny goddesses appear out of nowhere—and nothing is prepared, explained, or understood. As slum children, Jamal and his friends are enchantingly beautiful, but the supersaturated color makes not just the kids but every surface and texture shine glamorously, including the piles of garbage that Jamal and his brother live among. Boyle has created what looks like a jumpy, hyper-edited commercial for poverty—he uses the squalor and violence touristically, as an aspect of the fabulous.
I agree in part with the above sentiments. But if you made it to the last sentence of that paragraph, don’t you think Denby should have inverted the final clauses? “Boyle uses the squalor and violence touristically, as an aspect of the fabulous — he has created what looks like a jumpy, hyper-edited commercial for poverty.” It seems like such an obvious improvement that I’m not sure why the change wasn’t made. Probably I spend more time thinking about things like this, and less concentrating on important issues — like, say, Afghanistan — than I should.
46 comments
February 8, 2009 at 8:25 am
N. Merrill
I’m pretty sure Denby misread the film. In particular, the film takes pains to denigrate the “isn’t poverty authentic and glamorous” viewpoint by introducing the people who think that as victims of a clever scam.
February 8, 2009 at 8:29 am
ari
Agreed. But on to important matters: what are your thoughts on those clauses? And also, has there ever, in all of history, been a case of bi-weekly pwnage more obvious than the drubbing meted out by the hilarious Anthony Lane to the humorless David Denby? Even though they’re not really competitors, the referee should stop the fight.
February 8, 2009 at 8:32 am
Vance
Haven’t seen the movie, but in partial defense of his ordering of those clauses, I would argue that the one he chose second makes a clearer flow into the ultimate paragraph. Yes, your way rings a close more firmly, but this is less a close than a drawing breath.
February 8, 2009 at 8:34 am
N. Merrill
Actually, you’re completely wrong about this too. Lane isn’t a very good film critic, and he strains to zing, which removes the film. Denby isn’t a very good film critic, and he strains to show how decent and upstanding he is by getting outraged, which makes him toolish. They should both be fired and replaced by Megan McArdle.
February 8, 2009 at 8:36 am
N. Merrill
removes the film? Removes the fun, I mean. FFS.
February 8, 2009 at 8:38 am
ari
No, Lane’s not a great film critic. But he’s a fine and funny writer. Denby, on the other hand, is a lousy film critic and a worse stylist. As for this — “They should both be fired and replaced by Megan McArdle.” — I view such a statement as something like a universal truth, the Mad-Lib answer that always works.
February 8, 2009 at 8:39 am
ari
Hmm, Vance, you’re probably right about Denby’s rationale. Which raises another important issue: do we want him breathing?
February 8, 2009 at 8:48 am
andrew
I haven’t seen the movie or read the Denby review. However, Michael Wood in the London Review of Books has a similar take on the early sections of the film (it’s a mostly positive review overall):
February 8, 2009 at 8:50 am
eric
Isn’t the freedom with which critics lob around the adjective “Dickensian” for this movie a measure of … something bad?
Possibly the movie features children in dire poverty because India features children in dire poverty.
February 8, 2009 at 8:50 am
ari
So you’re accusing Denby of plagiarism? Excellent.
February 8, 2009 at 8:51 am
ari
Oops, my comment to andrew’s 8:48.
February 8, 2009 at 8:56 am
N. Merrill
He’s neither fine nor funny. I used to think as you do. Then I learned the truth.
February 8, 2009 at 8:59 am
N. Merrill
OK, my sense of the film is that it intentionally does these things in service of a larger and more interesting point. It’s supposed to be a sort of black-humor take on Horatio Alger trajectories.
February 8, 2009 at 9:07 am
ari
Fine, I’m willing to be educated. These scales on my eyes are uncomfortable. Still, have you seen this? Read to the end for the gimmick. Clever.
February 8, 2009 at 9:08 am
kid bitzer
what strikes me as *really* dickensian is the name “loveleen tandan”, the amber-skinned beauty of the mysterious orient.
February 8, 2009 at 9:12 am
ari
Too smiley to qualify as Dickensian.
February 8, 2009 at 9:27 am
andrew
I generally view the New Yorker‘s film criticism the same way I view its cartoons, which, I should add, is unfavorably, and for which, I should add, eric has belittled me repeatedly.
February 8, 2009 at 9:31 am
dana
Season 5 of the Wire ruined “Dickensian” for me.
February 8, 2009 at 9:50 am
kid bitzer
good lord. one can actually find a photo of loveleen tandan, on the web. how bizarre–it never would have occurred to me to look.
what next–photos of miss murdstone? of quilp? m’choakumchild?
i’m glad some of us fictional characters still enjoy a measure of privacy from the paparazzi.
February 8, 2009 at 9:53 am
eric
for which, I should add, eric has belittled me repeatedly.
I don’t think I’ve belittled this peculiar taste of yours, more that I’ve simply called it to the deserved attention of a general public interested in the exotic.
February 8, 2009 at 9:55 am
ari
the exotic
Racist.
February 8, 2009 at 9:57 am
eric
Also, this business of decrying Slumdog Millionaire because it doesn’t depict poverty in a sufficiently grim, PBS-documentary style of earnest is claptrap.
February 8, 2009 at 10:02 am
ari
I thought it was a bit cheesy, that’s all. I had no problem with the depiction of poverty. Though, looking back, this might have been a case for Smell-o-Vision.
February 8, 2009 at 10:11 am
eric
It’s the only non-kid movie I’ve seen theaters in about a year. It was GREAT, I’m telling you.
February 8, 2009 at 10:14 am
ari
With Smell-o-Vision it would have been GREAT.
February 8, 2009 at 10:45 am
DOW
Why don’t you guys get a room? And Twitter?
February 8, 2009 at 10:52 am
eric
I’m sorry, are we cluttering up your blog?
February 8, 2009 at 10:57 am
kid bitzer
i hate it when blog-proprietors get all…proprietary.
might as well call this thing “manifest destiny”, for all the real estate you’re grabbing.
February 8, 2009 at 11:00 am
ben
I disagree with the Lane-bashing. Part of Lane’s problem, I think, is that no one ever remembers his positive reviews because his pans grab the attention much more (and, fine, are more frequent). But he is actually capable of writing appreciatively of movies.
February 8, 2009 at 11:09 am
DOW
I expect long, thoughtful, trenchant comments worthy of possessors of degrees in advance of mine–preferably evoking Derrida or Foucauld or whomever the hell would be a cinematic equivalent, as if I knew what I was talking about. I mean, if you’re going to smugly denigrate Denby, lay into Lane and slam Slumdog (there, is that some writing?), you ought to be serious and not just trade one-liners. Although I do thank Kid Bitzer for spurring me to Google the seriously attractive Loveleen Tandan.
February 8, 2009 at 11:11 am
eric
I expect long, thoughtful, trenchant comments worthy of possessors of degrees in advance of mine
You get what you pay for. Also, I’m not the one running Denby down or lambasting Lane; I’m sticking up for Slumdog.
February 8, 2009 at 11:13 am
ari
And I like Lane and think Slumdog was just fine, if a bit cheesy. Denby, though, I can do without. Still, the post is hardly brutal, is it? I mean, I suggest, after agreeing with most of the substance of the man’s review, that a couple of clauses could be reversed. I guess you’ve never seen me when I’m feeling really critical.
February 8, 2009 at 11:14 am
ari
Also, it’s Sunday morning. And I’m chatting with my friends in the comments section of our blog. Now I’m chatting with you, too. See how that works? We can all be friends.
February 8, 2009 at 11:17 am
kid bitzer
loveleen is very charming, but not a patch on esther summerson.
February 8, 2009 at 11:23 am
DOW
Don’t get all defensive. I was just twitting you–I think it was Smell-o-vision that kicked me over the edge–not expressing hostility. Although I’m always bemused by how easy this medium makes it to veer into, or be taken as having veered into, snark. The damn grinny emoticons do seem to be necessary sometimes.
February 8, 2009 at 11:26 am
ari
Honestly, that’s how I took it. As a friendly jibe. Eric’s just very sensitive because the Bee wouldn’t feature him wearing his swim costume.
February 8, 2009 at 11:41 am
DOW
Nice plug. I’ll toss him a few bucks. Then when my wife gets home with the Sunday Bee I’ll look up his piece. Eric might be interested to know that last Friday I met with a financial planner in Rancho Cordova who observed that the New Deal hadn’t worked, citing unemployment statistics to which I yelped, “That’s flat-out wrong!” Of course, I couldn’t back up my claim with actual data off the cuff, but that evening I e-mailed him a slew of Rauchway posts cum graphs to discredit the spreading anti-FDR canard. The guy’s a Davis grad, so maybe he’ll be amenable, although Republicans seem remarkably fact-impervious.
But I’m bowing out now. Gotta start reading Bleak House, apparently.
February 8, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Anderson
“Slumdog” was indeed sentimental, but Denby is an idiot. A factually challenged idiot at that. The kid flat out didn’t know two of the questions, so they didn’t “all” refer back to some event in his life.
And, by definition, someone who wins that show will be someone who’s encountered the answers somewhere in his past.
February 8, 2009 at 12:11 pm
eric
DOW, you should always feel free to give to a worthy cause (and the WCRC is that, I believe) but the swim was last October. Maybe this autumn….
February 8, 2009 at 12:22 pm
DOW
Yeah, I realized that upon clicking further into the website. My daughter has run sponsored triathlons for leukemia and lymphoma (Team in Training) so I should probably give mostly to her. Since you didn’t drown, obviously, it’s worth another shot, eh?
February 8, 2009 at 12:47 pm
kid bitzer
“Gotta start reading Bleak House, apparently.”
well, that’s where the babes are. you want to see babes, that’s the place.
in fact, ‘bay watch’ was pretty much modeled on ‘bleak house’, just with some west coast touches.
February 8, 2009 at 1:54 pm
ben
And I like Lane … Lane, though, I can do without.
With friends like ari, eh?
February 8, 2009 at 2:18 pm
saintneko
Having not seen the movie, if I had to guess from the description alone, the reason the movie was shot in such a way is that it’s attempting to be a depiction of how our minds sort through memories when we’re reliving scenes in our Cartesian theatre of the mind (if you’ll excuse me mangling the meaning of that phrase to mean our sense-experience).
Do you have memories that execute in perfect traditional cinematic flow? Of course not, memories are an idealized sub-set of your sensing of the quantum effects of the moments you experienced. Memories are vague and jumpy and distorted from reality, colored by your personality, which is of course colored by every experience you’ve ever had.
The style may be unsettling to watch, and may seem to ultra-idealize poverty… but maybe that’s how he remembers things. No one from a privileged western life can know. Maybe he chooses to put a positive glow on his childhood memories because otherwise they will bring him pain.
In any case, as you know, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one and they’re all full of shit.
February 8, 2009 at 2:21 pm
DOW
Now that’s the kind of comment I’m talking about.
February 8, 2009 at 2:38 pm
ari
Oops. Thanks, Ben. I’ve made the change. Lane and Denby are both regulars at the blog. And they both vie for my attention. So I’ve got to keep the pecking order clear.
February 8, 2009 at 3:53 pm
MrTimbo
I thought the representations of poverty/violence were the only interesting things about that film, not for reasons of voyeurism, but because they, particularly the car-battery-torture administered by an otherwise sympathetic character, were so joltingly out of place in a film that otherwise made its every turn in pursuit of a very cheap, very acute kind of viewer satisfaction. Usually films like that — unexpected triumph of the underdog Karate Kid type stuff — don’t take as much time as Slumdog Millionaire to dwell on material as uncomfortable as torture, pogroms, and the worst kind of exploitation of children. I suspect that Denby’s censure of this as touristic voyeurism is actually a way of avoiding the prick of real guilt.