Three stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
Saroo Brierley’s personal saga is
the stuff of harrowing Dickensian melodrama: a deeply emotional and ultimately
triumphant journey recounted in his 2014 memoir, A Long Way Home.
The story screamed for big-screen
treatment, but the result disappoints. Poet and novelist Luke Davies’ script
focuses only on the beginning and end of Brierley’s chronicle, ignoring a
lengthy middle segment and — as a result — leaving viewers with all sorts of
questions. Perhaps more crucially, the film’s powerful first half completely
overwhelms what follows; first-time feature director Garth Davis lacks the
skill to hold our attention during the increasingly tedious and dull second
act.
On top of which, Dev Patel — who
plays the twentysomething Brierley — is badly overshadowed by young Sunny
Pawar, who plays 5-year-old Saroo.
Pawar’s performance is stunning.
Patel ... not so much.
The film clearly has been a
marketing challenge, given the various posters created to pique viewer
interest. None is very dynamic, perhaps the most misleading dominated by large
close-ups of Patel and co-star Rooney Mara, staring into each other’s eyes,
thus implying a romantic focus that’s only a very small part of the narrative.
All of which is a shame. Davies
didn’t adapt the story very well; Davis brought nothing to the table; and the
Weinstein Company bungled the marketing. Brierley deserved far better.
We meet Saroo as an adorably
precocious little boy, completely devoted to older brother Guddu (Abhishek
Bharate). They live in cruel poverty, in the Ganesh Tilai neighborhood of rural
India’s Khandwa, in the Nimar region of Madhya Pradesh. The boys beg, scuffle
for odd jobs, and steal coal from moving trains, to supplement the meager wages
earned by their single mother, Kamla (Priyanka Bose), who moves rocks at
construction sites.
When Guddu gets word of potential
work a short nighttime train ride away, Saroo demands to tag along, insisting
that he’s strong enough to do anything his brother can do. Guddu relents, but
the journey proves exhausting for the little boy; Guddu leaves him to rest on a
platform bench, promising to return soon.
But he doesn’t.
The station is deserted when
Saroo wakens. Exploring, repeatedly calling his brother by name, the little boy
wanders into an empty train, assuming that Guddu will return, and that this
train will take them back home. Saroo falls asleep again, not realizing that
this is a decommissioned train being sent across the entire country. Worse yet,
once awake, he’s unable to open the door, in order to escape each time the
train slows to pass various stations.
When it finally stops at
Kolkata’s huge Howrah station, the terrified Saroo flees into the bustling
streets. He’s almost a thousand miles from home — not that he knows this — and
can’t even communicate; he speaks Hindi, while most of the people he encounters
speak Bengali.
The subsequent ordeal, unfolding
over days and weeks, is both riveting and heartbreaking. Pawar’s expressive
little face ratchets through terror, exhaustion and wariness, the latter likely
saving his life on several occasions. Davies’ script suggests danger by
implication, but there’s no question that some of the adults Saroo encounters
don’t have his best interests at heart.
The engaging delicacy of Pawar’s
performance emerges in the curiosity that he also displays at unexpected
moments: an innocence, punctuated by occasional smiles, that children manifest
even amidst hardship. Davis deserves credit for coaxing such a radiant
performance from his youngest cast member, and we’re transfixed by the little
boy’s plight.
I’ll skip details, but it is
necessary — in order to set up the film’s second half — to acknowledge that
Saroo eventually winds up in a huge orphanage that is right out of Oliver Twist. He’s lucky, and gets
adopted fairly quickly by John and Sue Brierley (David Wenham and Nicole
Kidman), who take him to their home in Hobart, Australia.
The Brierleys subsequently adopt
a second boy, Mantosh (Keshav Jadhav), introduced just long enough to witness
his severe emotional problems...
...and then whammo! Suddenly we jump ahead 20 years, reunited with Saroo (now
played by Patel) as he joyously frolics in the ocean. The transition is
jarring, to say the least, but apparently Davies felt this was the best way to
proceed to the most important part of Saroo’s story. (I’d call that a serious
miscalculation.)
Saroo has become a happy young
man, deeply devoted to his adoptive parents, and contemplating a career in
hotel management. During an introductory seminar, he and Lucy (Mara) lock eyes;
they happen upon each other while walking down a street one day, the flirty
chemistry immediate and palpable.
We assume that Saroo has all but
forgotten his childhood, or at least has made peace with such memories. But a
chance conversation introduces him to the wonders of Google Earth, and he
suddenly wonders: Might it be possible to backtrack from Howrah station, to
find his childhood home, and perhaps his family? Difficult as this challenge is
already, it’s further complicated by the fact that he’s unable to find any
village or town with the name that we watched his frightened 5-year-old self
repeat to so many people.
Granted, the stuff of single-minded
research makes for poor drama, but other directors, in other films, have found
ways to maintain viewer interest. Davis lacks that gift, choosing instead to
turn Saroo into an obsessed, Howard Hughes-esque recluse. Mara can’t begin to
navigate the complexities of Lucy’s reaction to all of this; while their early
“courtship phase” is sweet, the later nature of their relationship is
maddeningly elliptical.
As is our reintroduction to
Mantosh (Divian Ladwa), who lives alone, still with emotional issues, and
surviving we know not how. Reference is made to how Mantosh has “broken his
mother’s (Sue’s) heart,” but that’s little more than said-bookism; Davies
doesn’t even try to fill in all of these narrative gaps.
Patel’s strong suit always has
been jovial charm, but he gets little opportunity for that here. And, sadly,
he’s not very good at “obsessive/compulsive.” He simply doesn’t make the adult
Saroo very interesting, and we yearn for little Pawar’s far more persuasive
performance.
Kidman and Wenham make it clear
that the Brierleys are good, kind-hearted people, but that’s about it. Kidman
does have one strong scene, when Sue tells a surprised Saroo why she and her
husband made a point of adopting him. It’s a refreshingly honest and persuasive
moment, and this half of the story could have used a lot more like it.
That said, the film’s production
values and location work are unerringly authentic. Davis and cinematographer
Greig Fraser make the most of the cacophonous Kolkata settings, and the dusty,
heat-shimmering Madhya Pradesh city of Indore stands in for Saroo’s boyhood
home. The various Australian locales are gorgeously lush by contrast.
Ultimately — eventually — Davis
concludes his film on a triumphant note, one made sweeter by some real-life
footage, just prior to the credits. But it’s too little, too late; Brierley
deserved far better than this clumsy, uneven treatment of his story.
You’re
much better off reading the book.
1 comment:
Saw this last night on DVD and agree with your assessment. However, little Saroo was enough to carry my interest, as was the gorgeous scenery.
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