The film starts out with Saroo at the start of his young life, establishing his idyllic yet impoverished life in India. The film glorifies his poverty into something romantic. This was conflicting for me from the beginning. I get that it is about memory and perhaps Saroo would remember this time with rose coloured glasses. He is investing in his past a certain romanticism and associating that with a culture he is embracing. But simultaneously it is devoid of any real experience of true poverty. There is little risk or danger to his life, not explored in any real way. The excuse is that this is based on his 4 year old mind remembering it, a mind which has no clue of a different life which might be available to him. Still this feels like an excuse to me to make his remembrances as sentimental as possible so that the movie can deliver its full emotional impact by the end. It feels a bit dishonest.
Then we start an adventure, and adventure which is probably the strongest part of the film. Young Saroo is separated from his brother and he is plunged into a world he doesn't understand. Kolkata is completely foreign to Saroo, no one speaks his language, homeless children are everywhere so his being lost isn't unique. He can't pronounce his home properly so no one can find his family. It is heart breaking, pulse racing, and shot as beautifully as anything in the film. Finally some horrors enter into the story. The orphanage is horrible and terrifying. The streets are cold and unforgiving. Again this makes sense in terms of the film's agenda. He has been expelled from Eden and thrown into the wilderness.
He is soon adopted by an Australian family. They are also idyllic, yet the film's handling of this part felt so forced. The issues in international adoption are so complex but the film presents this section so simply. Again, an excuse could be that we are seeing things through Saroo's eyes and his experience is a simple one. But his adaptation to Australian life is glossed over and (other than the film flirting with presenting his experience as different from the other boy adopted by his parents) Saroo suffers nothing in the transition. This part felt the most false of anything in Lion.
Finally the part of the film sold in the trailers begins. Saroo who has completely abandoned his Indian identity stumbles upon his feelings in a contrived way. I have no doubt it happened similarly to how it is presented her. The contrived feeling comes from the way the film dumps it on us. His romance with a white American girl is charming but once again the film doesn't know how to effectively express the growing chasm between then in a realistic way. I think Saroo's growing distance from his family and his partner despite their explicit support for his quest would have been fascinating but the film fumbles in completely.
The film never truly explores the dissonance for a crossculturually adopted person. Adoption in movies is always presented in such a romantic way. The larger culture treats adoption as quaint and lessor than biological family creation and all of this would play into Saroo's story. But none of it is explored. There is this terrible scene where Saroo's mother is portrayed as a noble white savior which rang completely false. The film never recovers from this either as Saroo resolves his multiplicity of family love with a simple phone call at the end. It's designed to just make us all feel good, and to make us all cry like a Hallmark commercial.
The ending of the film feels completely dishonest and cheap. Everything has built to this "turn on the waterworks" moment which I believe would have been far more emotionally powerful if it hadn't been for the manipulation. Seeing scenes of the real Saroo with his real birth mother introducing her to his Australian mother is a moment which could have been lovely but here just feels so exploitative. This sort of situation is extremely complicated and not just a "make cute" moment for movie audiences to fawn over.
The cast is remarkable. Dev Patel does his strongest work here and the younger Saroo, Sunny Pawar is a vision in each of his scenes. There were times I felt the cast was communicating more than the film would truly allow them to.
I feel horrible slamming this ending as in so many ways, the story behind Lion is truly beautiful. I love the idea of how complicated our identities are, how enriched they are through the creation of families of choice, the complications of adding racial and class issues into the mix, and the way human strength and love can overcome so much. I believe all that is here in this story but I feel Lion missed the boat on most of it in exchange for something more palatable, something that would have it's audience leaving with the kind of happy tears movie goes love.
Lion
Starring: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Sunny Pawar, Roony Mara, David Wenham
Director: Garth Davis
Writer: Luke Davies
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