There’s a trainload of rage in this thoroughly engaging film.
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| During their initial outing, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife, Pinky Madam (Priyanka Chopra), are surprised to discover that their new driver, Balram (Adarsh Gourav) hasn't the faintest idea how to get where they're going. |
Our “hero,” Balram (Adarsh Gourav), is introduced in a position of prominence. He has become that which he always hoped to attain: an entrepreneur. This isn’t an easy achievement in his country, as he explains; an Indian entrepreneur must be “…straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, all at the same time.”
Balram narrates his saga by way of a letter written to Chinese Premier Web Jiabao, on the eve of his visit to India in 2010. “American is so yesterday,” Balram begins. “China and India are tomorrow.” (If American viewers respond to that introduction with unease, I’ve no doubt that was Bahrani’s intention.)
Balram (played, as an adolescent, by Harshit Mahawar) grows up in the poor village of Laxmangarh. He’s a bright, curious and perceptive child: that rarest of jungle creatures, a “white tiger,” symbol of freedom and individuality. But his intelligence opens no doors in a feudal hamlet under the thrall of a big city coal baron dubbed “The Stork” (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his thuggish elder son, “The Mongoose” (Vijay Maurya). They extract one-third of the already meager rupees the villagers earn.
Balram watches his father literally work himself to death, while the family elder — Granny Kusum (Kamlesh Gill) — berates the man, for not laboring harder.
This mind set — the adult Balram explains, in voiceover — is due to the most insidious of India’s “inventions”: the rooster coop, where caged birds silently watch their fellows being slaughtered, while calmly waiting their turn. This characterizes India’s “dark” under class: not merely trapped in a perpetual cycle of poverty and servitude, but trained over centuries to accept that it should be that way.
As the adult Balram further observes, “Election promises had taught me how important it is, not to be a poor man in a ‘free’ democracy.”
Young Balram — as a white tiger — isn’t content. Once reaching adulthood, he sees that The Stork employs private drivers; the opportunity ripens further with the arrival of The Stork’s younger son, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), Westernized by the time he has spent in the United States. His wife, Pinky Madam (Priyanka Chopra), is even more enlightened and tolerant: a woman willing — could it be true? — to stand up to The Stork.
Balram determines to become their driver. Which means he needs to learn how to drive. Which requires money for lessons…
At which point — in terms of where said funds come from — we discover the sad degree to which power corrupts even within the lower caste, and how a family elder will exploit such a position.
Balram perseveres; he lands the job. He also becomes the favorite of Ashok and Pinky Madam, who treat him fairly decently. But although Balram wears better clothes, and enjoys improved living quarters, these are mere surface enhancements; his relative status remains unchanged.
The lowest of the low? Having to massage The Stork’s naked legs. (Feel free to grimace.)
Given his constant access to the doings of The Stork’s financial empire, Balram is dismayed to learn the degree to which corruption also operates at this rarefied level. This is typified by how an upper-echelon political figure — the progressive, rags-to-riches “Great Socialist” (Swaroop Sampat), beloved by India’s lower classes — maintains her position, behind the scenes, via bribes from The Stork and his ilk.
Even so, this “new normal” seems tolerable, particularly given the kindness displayed by Ashok and his wife. Alas, this also proves illusory; it’s easy to behave benevolently, under ordinary circumstances. But when a crisis hits, Ashok reverts to form, becoming his father’s son.
Adiga’s story takes a savage left turn midway through this 125-minute film. As Balram warns, in voice-over, things are about to get much darker.
Gourav’s Balram is a thoroughly mesmerizing protagonist, capably projecting the duality discussed above: cheerfully servile, with seemingly guileless sincerity, until he turns his back and his expression suddenly becomes harder. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, in David Copperfield, it soon becomes difficult to decide whether Balram will turn out to be the hero of his own life. In other words, does he remain admirable?
Up to a point, his determination and perseverance are just this side of noble, Gourav’s performance positively beatific. Then one opportunistic transgression gives us pause, and we wonder: Is Balram in danger of becoming that which he despises? Or — perhaps worse — is he destined to be crushed beneath the rigid walls of the system he hopes to circumvent?
Rao is equally adept at a role with similarly conflicting extremes. Ashok’s gentler nature is regarded with scorn by his father and elder brother, who view him as “weak,” and sniff contemptuously at his savvy insistence that tech — the rising Internet — is the wave of the future. The kindness Ashok shows Balram is mirrored by a slightly pleading note in Rao’s voice and gaze; the man wants a friend.
But Ashok already has crossed barriers by marrying the far too progressive Pinky Madam; his father and elder brother aren’t about to tolerate an alliance with a lower-caste nobody such as Balram.
Chopra’s Pinky Madam is this story’s genuinely decent character: passionate, forthright and earnest. Her desire to treat Balram as an equal is sincere, and not tempered by convenience. We admire her unreservedly, even as we wonder if she can persevere in this family.
Manjrekar and Maurya remain one-dimensional thugs, likely by intent; they’re bullies accustomed to getting their way by force and/or intimidation, and therefore have no subtleties or back-story that we need to worry about.
Nalneesh Neel is captivating as Vitiligo, the de facto head of the many private drivers like Balram. They congregate in their own garage enclaves, in the basements beneath the luxury hotels where their various masters stay in fancy top-floor rooms (the upper/lower caste divide made literal).
Vitiligo has the wisdom of experience, and shows Balram the ropes; Vitiligo also understands — and accepts — the brutal limitations of their lot in life. Neel dances between amused pity and occasional concern, in the face of Balram’s ambition; Vitiligo is quietly candid, during one telling conversation, when Balram wonders what to expect from this new life of his.
Bahrani cleverly seduces us with a first act that — thanks to frequent dollops of narrative sarcasm — offsets the ghastly details of lower caste existence. We’re thoroughly invested in Balram’s fate by the time we enter the far bleaker second act, which isn’t nearly as “entertaining” as what comes before; we hang on because we must, hoping for the best.
Cinematographer Paolo Carnera mirrors the story’s caste divide: His film stock and color palette are harsher and grainier during early sequences in Laxmangarh; and warmer and more refined within the aforementioned fancy hotels, and amid their surrounding grounds.
Bahrani’s film is as provocative and confrontational as Adiga’s novel … but not exactly judgmental. That’s perhaps even more unsettling, because we’re left with the notion that this is but a snapshot of caste barriers that haven’t changed for centuries, and likely never will change (a discouraging prescription for America’s own racial and social divide).
this was a powerful, fascinating movie. Your review was spot on and a pleasure to read.
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