Phone a friend...and tell them to see this movie!

I don't go to the cinema as often as I would like to, mainly because the quality of too many current films doesn't really motivate me to go, and often I just say 'I'll wait till it's on Sky Movies'. Faithful travelling companion suggested going to see "Slumdog Millionaire" a film which is currently winning or been nominated for numerous worldwide awards. (That would be a first for me, going to see an Oscar-nominated film before the Oscars take place).

So off we went to the movies yesterday - and what a great film it was too! A very simple idea, but developed in a highly original way. The film told the story of two brothers, Jamal and Salim, orphaned at a very young age, who had to find every way they could to survive in the poverty of the streets of Mumbai. They encounter a young girl named Latika, whose own destiny is inevitably linked to the two boys in different ways - and particularly to Jamal, who falls in love with her.

When the humble "slumdog" teenage call-centre worker Jamal appears on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", no-one expects him to know the answers to the difficult questions, but each question tells a story from an episode in this this young man's life. The slimy game show host certainly doesn't believe him, and has him arrested for fraud. He is tortured by the police but eventually gets the chance to answer that final big money question....

I won't give the ending away but all I'll say is that it's happy and heartwarming :)))

"Slumdog Millionaire" manages to be both thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time, with the social comment on the contrast between India's rich and poor, set against the glamour of a TV game show. It was an inventive and original film, one of the best I've seen in a long time and I'd recommend that you go and see it, for once here is a movie that lives up to the hype.