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TGM
01-01-2017, 04:38 PM
LION

Director: Garth Davis

imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3741834/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

TGM
01-01-2017, 04:44 PM
The first half was really damn good, where we're following the kid as he gets lost and has no idea what to even do. I could just keep imagining myself in his position at that age and realizing how hopeless I would be, and it was pretty striking seeing that play out. The kid they got for the role does a pretty swell job on top of that, and really makes for a pretty terrifying scenario that he finds himself in.

The second half is okay I guess, but almost acts as an extended ad for google maps. Really, that's how he finds his way home, he closes himself off from his friends and family for months (years?) and just scours google maps in private. Doesn't make for the most compelling drama, though Dev Patel somehow still manages to make it work (his best supporting actor nomination at the Globes is a headscratcher, though. How the fuck is he supporting?), and his relationships with Rooney Mara and his adopted family all help elevate the pretty mundane material in this half regardless.

Overall though, it's pretty good I'd say, and even touching at times.

Dead & Messed Up
01-01-2017, 06:13 PM
The first half was really damn good, where we're following the kid as he gets lost and has no idea what to even do. I could just keep imagining myself in his position at that age and realizing how hopeless I would be, and it was pretty striking seeing that play out. The kid they got for the role does a pretty swell job on top of that, and really makes for a pretty terrifying scenario that he finds himself in.

The second half is okay I guess, but almost acts as an extended ad for google maps. Really, that's how he finds his way home, he closes himself off from his friends and family for months (years?) and just scours google maps in private. Doesn't make for the most compelling drama, though Dev Patel somehow still manages to make it work (his best supporting actor nomination at the Globes is a headscratcher, though. How the fuck is he supporting?), and his relationships with Rooney Mara and his adopted family all help elevate the pretty mundane material in this half regardless.

Overall though, it's pretty good I'd say, and even touching at times.

Agreed on the front half, which moves beat by beat, progressing from one mistake to the other, until we completely understand how this kid got lost, and Gareth seeds the development with important visual markers (the water tower) that return later as satisfying payoffs. The shot selection is rarely more than functional, but they get the job done, and the focus anyway is on the child performance.

Also agreed that the second half didn't engage as well. I didn't have a problem with the Google Maps so much as the scattershot dramatization - how scenes with the family seemed to drop in and drop out without a fair sense of build, and how Saroo's obsession didn't feel all that embedded in his character. I wanted a stronger sense of developing mania, but it proceeds more like bio-pic at that point and loses some of the brick-by-brick escalating power of the first half. Rooney Mara proves a frustrating example of the dramatization, smiling and crying her way through Protagonist Enabler. There's no sense of her existence outside of how she supports Saroo (his family at least has a second, more troublesome son, as well as their own perspective on family). Once Saroo digs outside his map and finds more clues, the flick regains some of that earlier strength, where each scene builds to the next, and the finale proves surprisingly moving (up until a cloying power anthem leads us through postscripts and credits - ugh).

Patel and Kidman have some great individual scenes (Wenham's underutilized despite his warm presence), but if this is anybody's movie, it's Pawar's.

Ivan Drago
01-01-2017, 06:29 PM
Is Dev Patel's performance as Oscar-worthy as everyone makes it out to be? I'm just skeptical of all the buzz surrounding his performance after serviceable but wooden showings in Slumdog Millionaire and Chappie.

Dead & Messed Up
01-01-2017, 06:51 PM
Is Dev Patel's performance as Oscar-worthy as everyone makes it out to be? I'm just skeptical of all the buzz surrounding his performance after serviceable but wooden showings in Slumdog Millionaire and Chappie.

Solid, but I haven't seen enough from this year to judge whether or not he merits a gold man. Again, Pawar is where it's at.

TGM
01-01-2017, 10:21 PM
Is Dev Patel's performance as Oscar-worthy as everyone makes it out to be? I'm just skeptical of all the buzz surrounding his performance after serviceable but wooden showings in Slumdog Millionaire and Chappie.
I would agree with DAMU that it's serviceable. Not sure I'd say deserving of awards recognition, though. There have been FAR better performances than his this year.

Peng
01-02-2017, 02:05 AM
Haven't seen this yet, but I thought the awards buzz is more around Nicole Kidman (as supporting)?

Dead & Messed Up
01-02-2017, 08:24 AM
Haven't seen this yet, but I thought the awards buzz is more around Nicole Kidman (as supporting)?

That seems more plausible.

Peng
01-12-2017, 01:59 PM
Mixed, leaning towards positive. It's as if the crucial 'Dev Patel in Australia' section is handed to another screenwriter and director; it's as hacky and broad as everything around it is low-key observant, nicely understated, and at times very much affecting. The extended first act, starring a great young Sunny Pawar, is particularly harrowing and emotional, by nature of its step-by-step progression alone without the filmmaking needing to lean too much into manipulative. In the end it's a touch deflating given the place in the story of that rather dreadful section, but overall gorgeous, well-acted, and willing to just let the details in its amazing true story work well enough on their own. 6.5/10

Spinal
02-12-2017, 09:45 PM
I liked this a lot. It occurs to me that the subject matter is a great story, but really not a great plot. Arbitrary events propel the protagonist from one place to another. And yet, despite that, the film is somehow an effective examination of wealth and poverty, love and guilt, fate and coincidence. Definitely worth watching for its gripping first chapter and the power of its concluding scenes. The kid is a treasure.

Mal
02-23-2017, 03:48 AM
A severely non-pulsed experience beyond the first half. Kind of a waste.

Ezee E
04-11-2017, 08:55 AM
How the heck did Sunny Pawar not get nominated for this? His portion is clearly the strength and heart of the movie. Loved his portion as it seemed effortless in establishing a confusing/stressful situation, and different ideas of "good family."

Dev Petel's section... I mean, it's fine, but until the sighting of jalebi, it didn't seem like looking for the family was even a consideration. Rooney Mara's character is kind of just an excuse for explaining things too. I did like the other brother factor and how that complicated everything in his new family.

Still, for that first hour or so, it was pretty great. I'll be curious what Garth Davis does as he moves on.

Grouchy
11-09-2017, 01:14 PM
Yeah, agreeed with everyone that the first half of the film is much, much better than what comes afterwards. The best scene in the second half is the Patel/Kidman one where she reveals that the reason they adopted children has nothing to do with infertility. I thought that was a well handled dramatic moment.

Overall, good but nothing to write home about. One difficulty that films have is when a recognizable actor plays a character in different stages of adulthood, like twenty years apart on this case. If you apply make-up or CGI aging that's all you can think about. But if you don't, like in this case, I was stuck thinking "wow, this couple sure aged gracefully".