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.
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| Waiting to reunite with an older brother who fails to return for him, 5-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) boards a parked train, assuming that it eventually will take him back home. Sadly, and alarmingly, he's in for a nasty surprise. |
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.
