Slumdog, A Tough Competitor

I’m going to note this only because the Oscar season should be about the movies but really, it’s all about the drama. Laments come from all sides because, supposedly, it isn’t the nature of the beast but the many parasites that live off the beast that are the problem (when in doubt, blame it on the Oscar blogs). It is human nature to compete. The Bagger talks Slumdog today. He championed both Little Miss Sunshine and Juno and it isn’t because he’s friendly with Fox Searchlight so much as he’s a sap underneath it all. My own theory. Here, he writes about Slumdog and one has no choice but to agree with him. He’s right about the movie and he’s right about the season:

One-by-one, the other contenders have come and gone, impressing to be sure, but none knocking filmgoers back in their seats. And that’s what a best picture does. “The Departed” may have wobbled in parts, but once the viewer was strapped in, the film took off. “No Country For Old Men” the same way. Even “Crash” created a wind inside the movie house, regardless of its shortcomings. You’d have to go back to 2004 and “Million Dollar Baby” to find a winner that unfolded in its own sweet time.

Though “Slumdog Millionaire” has a hoary plot device, the kind of narrative armature that could have come out of the vaults of Warner Brothers five decades, the ability of Mr. Boyle to find both the movie and the humanity in that story make it a tough Oscar competitor.

That means, I think, Slumdog wins by default. If it is the only movie that makes voters sing, and they don’t want to award The Dark Knight, which, other than the comic book thing, would have Oscar written all over it (with a red crayon) — it’s the charmer for the gold. You know, for a long time, there has been a desire to merge Bollywood and Hollywood and before now, it’s been resisted by both sides. Slumdog should meet somewhere in the middle – western enough for our tastes (Dickensian themes, poverty, true love, poor vs. rich) and authentic enough for Bollywood tastes (poverty, true love, poor vs. rich, with a song and dance or two — here there is only one. One more and its Oscar chances would have been zip).

Funnily enough, there have been many movies that took the wind out of me — Benjamin Button for one. Revolutionary Road for another. But I suppose I would have to agree that, all in all, it isn’t last year with films like No Country and There Will Be Blood or the year before, with The Departed and The Queen. So perhaps, given that, it could be Slumdog’s to lose. The trouble is, the more people weigh it down by saying it’s going to win, the harder it will be for its wings to lift.