Lion review
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Lion
Weinsteine
PG 13. 118 min
And to wrap up the best picture category we have another long shot, lion the story of an adopted Indian boy attempting to seek out his roots.
One of the reasons for a lion being a long shot coincides with moonlight in that nobody saw it, and frankly if word of mouth is much of an indicator I can't imagine why anyone would see this and highly recommend it to friends. To be fair this one is not nearly as stultifyingly miserable as moonlight but it's just not a very gripping story even if there are a few more empathetic characters. The problem is that it's just hard to understand their motivations fully. Saroo (Dey Patel) his brother and their mother live in abject poverty in one of the poorest regions of India and make their living basically by scavenging. One day on an excursion to make a few rupees Saroo, the younger of the brothers, gets separated and lost. As a matter of fact a great deal the film is the little guy living by his wits in unimaginable desolation A long time passes as he wanders and is finally rescued by the authorities. Unfortunately the little fellow doesn't even know his mother's name beyond mum and ends up in what passes for social services in India. Nicole Kidman her husband are two do-gooder folks in Australia who have made it their mission to adopt a pair of poverty-stricken Indian boys. One of them is Saroo, a bright intelligent and outgoing young man and the other a damaged ill-tempered social misfit. Theres very small portion of the movie devoted to their relationship.
Skip to Saroo as a Young Man in a relationship with a nice girl but tortured by the idea that he doesn't know where he came from and the fear that is mother and brother must be grief-stricken not knowing where he's gone. With the help of his own childhood memory and Google Earth he finally reconnects with a poor village from whence he came. One might expect some sort of catharsis but there is little more than the emotional reuniting with mother and a sister, and cut and wrap. Actually there is never much in the way of excitement or emotion or danger or much of anything that one might expect in a best picture nomination. There's really little to dislike and we're all pleased that the young man's finds his mother but try as I might I couldn't find anything particularly special. Sorry.
C
WSS
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