'Lion' has half an Oscar-worthy film
鈥淟ion鈥� is a severely bifurcated movie. For its first 45 minutes or so, it鈥檚聽extraordinary, then for the duration, it turns into inspirational Oscar bait.聽The net result is by no means terrible, but the film appears to have been made聽by two different, almost warring sensibilities.
Directed by Garth Davis from a script by Luke Davies, the film is聽based on the true adventure of Saroo Brierley, who lives with his older聽brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate), and mother in a remote, impoverished聽Indian village. When Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is separated from Guddu during a nighttime expedition and is trapped in a train聽taking him 1600 miles to Kolkata, he finds himself totally isolated.聽Speaking not Bengali but Hindi, he can鈥檛 even communicate with those聽who might help him, and he can鈥檛 locate his village or even remember his聽mother鈥檚 full name.
Adopted by a Tasmanian couple, well played by Nicole Kidman and聽David Wenham, who subsequently adopt a far more troubled Indian boy,聽Saroo, played as a young man in the film鈥檚 second half by Dev Patel,聽thrives on his parents鈥� loving kindness but can鈥檛 rid himself of the ache of聽not knowing what happened to his Indian mother and brother. Then he聽discovers Google Earth and eventually finds his way home.
As long as the movie is about the young boy in India, it鈥檚 powerful聽and harrowing. Davis, a British television director making his feature film聽debut, has a plangent feeling for the pathos and squalor and poetry of聽India. And Pawar is such a willful and industrious little actor that at all聽times, you feel everything he is feeling as he struggles to survive.
It鈥檚 when Saroo grows up and starts searching for his roots that the聽movie becomes conventional. Patel is a fine actor, but I didn鈥檛 quite see in聽his Saroo the spark that animated the earlier, 5-year-old Saroo. It鈥檚聽perhaps inevitable that 鈥淟ion,鈥� in its non-India phase, would lack the immediacy of the earlier scenes, but the break is so clean that it made me聽wonder: Is it possible to give an Oscar to half of a movie? Grade:聽B- (Rated PG-13 for thematic material and some sensuality.)
