Good Movie

It has been SO long since we've been to the big-screen theatre and seen something really astonishing. Last night, Bill and I trekked off to see Slumdog Millionaire, which by all accounts and awards, was this year's best film.

It was fabulous. Both of us came out of the theatre saying "What a good movie!" The writing was superb, the scripting and pacing were just right. I kept thinking as I was watching it, "why, this is an Indian Forrest Gump!" (Without the American 50s-60s-70s-80s soundtrack of course).

And it succeeded in my first rule of movies: I have to care about what happens to these characters.

The hero had a purity of vision and clarity of purpose--and he prevailed. The evil guys got the consequences of their nefarious deeds. The characters had enough humor and complexity to do the unexpected occasionally, just like real people.

Back in November, when I was staying at Brother Jerry's, he was reading movie reviews to us over breakfast and announced, "this is it, this is going to be the hit movie this year!" He told us the title and the plot, and we all cynically said, "no way, you've got to be kidding." But he was right.

It was clever, beautiful, horrifying at times, emotional, and uplifting.