Toronto Film Festival, Sat. 9/6, 11:40 a.m.: Smells like money The first populist smash of this year’s Toronto festival has arrived.Some movies have a little bit of everything, and some have a lot, and “Slumdog Millionaire” (directed by Danny Boyle, due in theaters Nov. 28) has a lot. Its dazzling whirligig technique ensures serious awards consideration, and its rags-to-riches narrative, set largely in the teeming slums of Mumbai, India, hangs on an irresistible hook: an 18-year-old survivor of the worst sort of poverty finding himself on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”I’ll write more about this for Monday’s print and online editions, but for now: This one is sure to find an appreciative international audience. Even though I have reservations about Boyle’s visually kaleidoscopic approach to a story with enough Dickensian adversity and triumph for Dickens and Henry Fielding’s collected works, by the end I was pulled in all the way. It’s based on Vikas Swarup’s bestseller “Q & A,” and “Slumdog Millionaire” is a work of artful story construction as well as ruthlessly effective melodrama—complete with a Bollywood-style dance for the end-credits sequence.
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/2008/09/smells-like-mon.html
