Off the bat, Lion is a corker of a movie. It’s about of a boy who becomes separated from his family in India and is taken to Tasmania for adoption. After 20 years, he manages to track down the village of his birth through Google Earth (yes, really) and begins a journey to find his lost family.
It’s a true story, and true stories always make the best movies – Lion is no exception. The writing is brilliant, the acting superb (though I wouldn’t expect anything less from Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel), and cinematography was brilliant.
In fact, there was only one real problem I had with the film, and I’m not sure there’s much they could really have done about.
It’s a true story, sure; but it’s a very basic true story, and I’m not sure there was enough of it to fill two hours. We see how Saroo was lost in Calcutta, and then how he was adopted, and then we get a massive time jump to his twenties. I would have liked to have seen a lot more of him growing up to be honest: how did he adjust to being displaced to a new country and a new way of life? Felt a little bit cheated there…
As I said, the acting was superb, which was used (successfully) to fill up much of the time that would normally be used for a more complex story. I never get tired of watching Nicole Kidman, so no complaints from me.
And here’s something else that stood out: the musical score. Usually, the background music in films completely passes me by, but Lion’s strange combination of electronic sound and piano worked extremely well, without being too distracting (unlike the idiots talking behind me).
Is Lion worth seeing? Definitely. It carries a powerful message about loss, obsession and the suffering of others a lot less fortunate than ourselves. Eighty thousand children go missing in India every year. I had no idea 🙁
See it. Ten out of ten.