A roaring story of a life looking for meaning and family.
Lion
Grade: B
Director: Garth Davis (P.I.N.S.)
Screenplay: Luke Davies (Life) from Saroo Brierley novel “A Long Way Home”
Cast: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), Rooney Mara (Carol)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hrs.
by John DeSando
“You can’t go home again.” Thomas Wolfe
If that’s true, then Lion as a film is pure daydreaming, for Saroo (Dev Patel) as a 25 year old man in Australia has spent 20 years away from his home in India and wants to return. Not as easy as it sounds: After leaving home at 5 unwittingly on a train for days, he is eventually adopted to Australia with loving foster parents and the need to find his real mother and family.
As far as daydreaming, Lion is based on a true story, so take that you naysayers. For those in love with technology, see Google Maps work its magic.
This lyrically-played, beautifully shot, at times depressing melodrama is a study in love: Saroo’s love shared with his adoptive mother, Sue (Nicole Kidman), is affecting, so authentic is Kidman’s performance. I’ve never seen her act as finely as this. Too bad she is underused here. Her joy in the little boy and her deep connection to the adult is one of filmdom’s finest relationships. An Oscar nod is sure to come.
However, so distraught is Saroo’s adult life with his dreams of youth and finding home that he leaves his hospitality job, almost destroys his love with a classmate (Rooney Mara), and distances himself from his adoptive family. Nobody ever said searching for your mother would be easy, and this film makes sure you know that. Its metaphors about two worlds reaching for each other give dramatic and interpretive heft.
In an effective juxtaposition, the addled, ruinous adopted brother, Mantosh (Divian Ladwa), contrasts the mature and overly-sensitive Saroo. His anger against Mantosh saps the film of its established melancholic pace, almost as if we needed to be jolted out of sharing the obsessive homecoming dream.
Saroo must eventually decide which identity to take—Aussie or Indian. Meanwhile, as we wipe the sympathetic tears from our eyes, we can faintly hear the lion roar.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
