Dev Patel (of Slumdog Millionaire fame) once again
stars in a tale of transformation and miracles. He goes from a life of unmitigated
poverty in central India to a privileged upper middle class existence in
Australia, and then makes an incredulous return to his roots decades later.
Lion is a film based on the book The Long
Way Home by Saroo Brierley on the true story of his life. The arc of the
story is simple, and the viewer is aware all along that Saroo Khan comes full
circle, back to his dusty hometown in Khandwa, India, twenty-five years after his
adoption.
Saroo is a childhood mispronunciation of “Sheru”
(meaning lion). The movie begins with Saroo and his older brother Guddu
stealing coal from a moving train, a foreshadowing of the pivotal role a
train-ride has in the life of this lion cub. We get a glimpse of the harsh life
the brothers lead, eking out a living through pilfering and odd jobs, interspersed
by the warmth of their fraternal bond and the love of their mother, an
illiterate laborer whose meager livelihood earned by carrying rocks in the
sandy plains of Khandwa is supplemented by the proceeds of her enterprising
sons. Saroo’s enthusiasm for helping makes him insist that he accompany his
teenage brother on his night job. This ill-fated decision leads to him being
stranded on a decommissioned train carrying him a thousand miles away from his
hometown to India’s third largest city.
Saroo’s weeks in Kolkata are by themselves a
harrowing tale of grit and survival. Forced to experience a range of hardships
from scavenging for food to escaping the hold of predatory adults, 5-year old
Saroo miraculously survives alone as a street child, eventually ending up in an
orphanage. An inability to give specifics about where he is from keeps him from
locating his mother and returning home even when genuine help is at hand. In
1987, he is adopted by a well-to-do Australian couple, and begins life in
Hobart, Tasmania.
The movie is directed by Garth Davis, a TV and
commercial director for whom this is a first feature length film, and a strong contender for his first Oscar. Nicole Kidman
and David Wenham star as Saroo’s adoptive parents. The 5-year old Saroo, portrayed
brilliantly by Sunny Pawar captures with equal skill the adoration Saroo has
for his older brother, the anguish and desperation of finding himself alone on
a runaway train, and the endurance of a street-savvy homeless child tempered by
innocence. Although still a cub, Sunny Pawar is the true star of this film. The
Lion, played by Dev Patel, enters the story after a gap of 20 years from where
the cub leaves off. It is a role for which Patel underwent considerable
preparation in accent and physique, and which he delivers with roaring success.
In an artistic deviation from the appearance of the real Saroo Brierley, Patel
sports a mane of shoulder-length wavy black hair that grows progressively more
unkempt and disheveled as his obsession to find his hometown through Google
Earth grows. In contrast, Kidman’s appearance as Saroo’s adoptive mother is
fashioned after the real Su Brierley. The most poignant scene with Kidman is
one where mother and son discuss the circumstances of their relationship, and
Su Brierley reveals the true depth of her love for her children.
Sunny Pawer as Saroo
Lion is a tale of survival, loss, and yearning set in
the backdrop of two worlds that could not be more different. It is a story
about the power of memory in shaping our identities - images that are projected
silently for decades provoking no action until years later when the time is
right and the ally of technology willing. Old memories are unearthed by an accidental
sense trigger which then unleash in Saroo the unrestrainable desire to find his
mother and brother. This insuppressible urge is a testament to the idea that we
are who we were. We are what we have been.
The Saroo Brierley story is an incredible tale of a
search for lost identity. It illustrates the point that the existential verb
“to be” is always used in the present
tense when talking about one’s origins. We say “I am from India,” and not
“I was from India” because you can
never take back where you are from.
In 2013, twenty-six years after he was adopted, Saroo
Brierley returns again to India, this time with his adoptive mother, Su Brierley, to meet Fatima Munshi.
The story of Saroo Brierley is a life-affirming
narrative playing out in the context of a harsh reality. As the movie website
projects, there are over 80,000 children who go missing in India every year.
The UN estimates that there are 150 million street children in the world today.
Lion is scheduled to be released by The Weinstein Company on November 25th
2016.
Sheru Munshi Khan with Fatima Munshi
Mothers and Son
