Slumdog Millionaire Vs The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Hello All,

Before I start scrutinising both the movies, I’d want to say that both are extremely good movies with a brilliant plot. Being an Indian I hope SDM sweeps all the major awards at the Oscars later this month. More than Danny Boyle, I hope A R Rehman wins the three awards he has been nominated for. He’d only be the 2nd Indian ever to win an oscar, the first being the Late Satyajit Ray. He had won the Life Time Achievement Award for his bengali film Ponther Panchali. It’d have been even more heartening for me personally and the millions of other Indians if AR Rehman would win it for an Indian movie. Never the less, an oscar is an oscar. So best wishes to ARR.

Coming to the two movies now. SDM has been nominated for 10 oscars whereas TCCOBB has been nominated for 13. I have watched both the movies a couple of times. TCCOBB took me three attempts to complete as the movie is mind numbingly slow. For a hollywood movie 2 hours and 43 minutes is a huge drag. Though the concept of the movie is new it is highly impractical. Still the portrayal of the character Benjamin Button was brilliant. By portrayal I mean the physical portrayal. If anybody from the TCCOBB team deserves an oscar it should be Brad Pitt’s make-up artiste. His acting I personally thought was highly ordinary and Pitt boasts of much better performances in the past. Still due to lack of decent competition in the best actor category there is every possibility of him walking away with the highest honours.

The main place where I think TCCOBB lost out to SDM is in publicity. SDM after losing Warner bro.s contract was on its way to directly being released as a DVD. It wouldn’t even have hit the theaters if Fox pictures hadn’t stepped in at the right time. The kind of publicity they provided is the prime factor behind SDM being where it is today. Another major factor what I believe is the fact that the movie revolves around the slums of Mumbai. Frankly speaking even till date there are millions around the world who carry that image of India. It still is believed to be a poverty stricken place. Not everyone around the globe know that India is way more than just slums and dirty roads. Anyway, the point here is the reason I believe this movie has been so well accepted ,is because of the central plot. It deals with the life of a slum kid which invariably strikes an emotional chord with the most. Danny Boyle has managed to maintain the authenticity of the Mumbai slums without sugar coating anything. He has shown the life of a slum dweller exactly like how it is.

Still I believe certain things could have been different in the movie. The TV show host has been shown in a bad light which could have been different as the real host of that particular TV show was a very warm hearted person and respected everyone on the show at least on the screen unlike whats shown in SDM. I didn’t see the point in killing Saleem off even though he was a negative character.

Anyway whatever said and done SDM is the front runner at this year’s academy awards. I am pretty sure the whole of India will be glued to their television sets on 22nd of February hoping Slumdog Millionaire bags as many as possible. Best of luck to the whole crew and cast of SDM. And all the best to the TCCOBB team as well. May the best movie win.

Cheers !