Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal, and Mahesh Manjrekar

Slumdog Millionaire is a very good film, I'm just not sure it was the masterpiece it was made out to be. Danny Boyle provides a visually stimulating experience and a genuinely moving story, but the absurdity of the convenience of the questions on the central game show detracts from the film as a whole. The cast, made up of Indian actors unknown in the United States, make the most of the material. I just found it hard to get past the idea that the fifteen facts this young man learned in his life happened to be the fifteen questions asked of him on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It was a weak year for movies overall, so even if Slumdog is not as good as some of the other most recent Best Picture winners, it is difficult to argue that it did not deserve its award, especially considering the other films nominated. Although I may have preferred Milk, this is the more "Oscar-like" of the two, so I'm not surprised that it won.

Other nominees: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher), Frost/ Nixon (Ron Howard), Milk (Gus van Sant), and The Reader (Stephen Daldry)