Originally published as Q&A, Danny Boyle directed Slumdog Millionaire, and won the Best Picture oscar.
How did an Indian boy from the slums of Mumbai win one billion rupees on a gameshow? Thought to have cheated, the police decide to "interrogate" him. In the novel a female attorney rescues him before he can be tortured. In the movie he isn't as lucky.
The movie follows the novel structurally. The biggest difference is that Ram Mohammad Thomas' love interest is almost non-existent in the book but omnipresent in the movie. His flashbacks revealing how he serendipitously came to learn every answer growing up in India, differ radically from novel to screen: but both entertain equally!
Swarup even manages some thought-provoking questions. When Ram is treated to a night out by four affluent American college students, he debates the relationship between poverty and desire.
And I wonder what it feels like to have no desires left because you ... smothered them with money even before they are born. Is an existence without desire very desirable? And is the poverty of desire better than rank poverty itself?
After reading Slumdog Millionaire, you might be surprised how you answer that question.
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