IMDb plot summary: A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.
Directed by Garth Davis. Starring Sunny Pawar, Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, and Nicole Kidman.
Oh, this is truly a lovely movie. There are a lot of awkward or cliched traps it could have fallen into but it managed to avoid all of them and bring depth and meaning to a story that deserves to have that. The first half of the movie, focusing on Saroo as a young child, brings us perfectly into his mindset, making the world seem big and scary. When we transition to the second half, that sense of enormity is still there, even though it's reined in a little. Nicole Kidman very nearly steals the show even with only a few scenes, and Dev Patel brings wonderful personality to a character whose internal thoughts mostly stay internal. I'm glad this is up for Best Picture. I doubt it'll take the win over La La Land or Moonlight, but I'm glad to see recognition for a simple story told very beautifully.
4.5 stars.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Lion > Born Yesterday
Lion > Australia
Lion > Garden State
Lion < Bullets Over Broadway
Lion > Horrible Bosses
Lion < Big Fish
Lion < Frozen
Lion < High School Musical 2
Lion < Hot Fuzz
Lion > Dead Again
Lion < The Matrix
Final spot: #238 out of 2582.
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