Lion

Even if the movie does feel a bit fragmented at times, and it sometimes feels like parts of the story are missing, there is no denying the emotional power that Lion holds.  Based on the inspirational true story of Saroo Brierley, who at the age of five became lost on the streets of Calcutta, over a thousand miles away from his home, this is an often fascinating story of a young man's search for home which lasted for over 20 years.  The movie may not be perfect, but it's impossible not to get involved.

The film opens in 1986, where five-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) works with his older brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) to do various odd jobs in order to help out their mother.  One day, Guddu announces that he must take a train to a far off city in order to find work.  Saroo insists that he come along, and after much hesitation, Guddu eventually agrees to let him accompany him on the job.  Somewhere along the way, the two brothers are separated from each other, and in the end, Saroo finds himself on the streets of Calcutta, with no idea of where he is, or even where his home is.  He does not speak the local language, and is too young to give the locals much information. He is sent to an orphanage, where he eventually has the good fortune to be adopted by a kindly Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham), who bring him to their home, and give him the kind of life he could have only dreamed of before.  Saroo grows up to be an adult (now played by Dev Patel), haunted by the distant memories of the mother and brother that he knows are waiting for him back home in India.  Using Google Earth, he becomes obsessed with tracking down his original home.

The first half of Lion, which details with Saroo's struggles and trials on his own are when the movie is the most effective.  It does a wonderful job of placing the audience in the shoes of its young protagonist, and showing the fears and confusion that he must have felt being lost at such a young age.  The fact that he did not speak the local language, and knew nothing about where he came from or how to get back makes it all the more compelling, and immediately draws sympathy for him.  When he is adopted and sent to live in Australia, we are happy for him, though I do wish the film had let us seen more of his life here.  This is kind of the point where Lion also starts to seemingly skip over large sections of his life.  We flash forward to Saroo as an adult just as a major event happens in his childhood, one that apparently is still affecting him as an adult.  But because the movie flashes forward and skips some 20 years as soon as this event happens, it doesn't resonate as much as it should. 

The second half focusing on Dev Patel as the adult Saroo follows a somewhat more rigid and predictable docudrama formula.  He has a love interest (Rooney Mara, given a somewhat thankless role here), and is driven to find his family, but it lacks the power of the first half when he was a child wandering alone.  What does work are the scenes dealing with Saroo and his Australian family, and his conflicted feelings about tracking down his birth mother and brother.  He is unsure how his adoptive family will see his actions, or perhaps they will think he does not see them as his real family.  So, he withdraws within himself, shutting out most of the people around him as his search intensifies.  The scenes concerning Patel and Kidman are some of the best in the later half of the film, with Kidman in particular standing out in a somewhat small supportive role.  She doesn't get a lot of screen time here, but she makes the most of it.

What impressed me the most about Lion was its attention to detail.  Many of the people appearing in the scenes set in India are not actors, and are actual locals who were hired by the filmmakers.  The movie also closes with some documentary footage that the filmmakers shot concerning Saroo's personal journey, and when we see the actual people, it is amazing how much the actors who were cast look like their real life counterparts at times.  And as expected, the film's final moments are highly emotional and wonderful.  The only thing I object to is the fact that screenwriter Luke Davies apparently cut out large parts of the story in order to fit a two hour run time.  It kind of feels like parts of the story are missing.  But, I guess that's all the more incentive to read the autobiographical book that inspired the film.

Despite some narrative faults, Lion succeeds as a stirring example of determination.  It doesn't feel like it's been heavily glossed over in order to be an instant crowd pleaser like the recent Hidden Figures, and it manages to earn its emotions rather than manipulating them.  The story of Saroo Brierley is a spellbinding one, and the movie for the most part matches that quality.

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