Lion (2016)
Director: Garth Davis. (PG)
Rating: 4/5 - Very good lots to enjoy
Synopsis
Saroo is a small boy in a rural Indian backwater who ekes out a living picking coal from passing freight trains to sell. One day at a train station, his elder brother goes missing and, while looking for him, he is trapped on a passenger train travelling the breadth of India. Lost, frightened and unable to understand the native Bengali dialect, he finds himself in an orphan’s home and then adopted by a nice middle-class couple in Tasmania (Nicole Kidman and David Denham). He adjusts well to the new life and slowly forgets the trauma of getting there. But when is grown up (Dev Patel), old memories are stirred. But how will Saroo find his family when he doesn’t know where he lived and the route of his train nearly 30 years ago?
Review by Jason Day
The past is a constant reminder of what one has not only gained in life but also lost to achieve it in this 20 hankie weepie that pushes all the right buttons to jerk the tears out of an audience.
Director Davis makes frequent use of emotionally stirring flashback sequences and stark, shrill music to underline Patel's efforts to recall his former life and retrace the steps that took him away from his impoverished but loving family.
Patel puts in a winning turn as the culturally conflicted Indian-Australian who must literally fly his adoptive Tasmanian nest and loving mother Kidman, who shows what a very effective and memorable actress she can be, with material that gives her the right nudge.
The questions posed here of course have no easy answers, but the film does have a neatly diplomatic ending that mixes the drama with the actual story, for those who have no more crying in them.
For more, read the full review: http://bit.ly/LionFilm
