Lion (2017)

It's all a bit 'so what' really. Think Slumdog Millionaire set half in Australia with no gameshow and where nothing much happens. I forgot everything that I had seen about 30 minutes after all...

It's all a bit 'so what' really. Think Slumdog Millionaire set half in Australia with no gameshow and where nothing much happens. I forgot everything that I had seen about 30 minutes after all of it ended. It wasn't exactly a story crying out for a movie, but Dev Patel does his best anyway, somehow managing to sell a young romance with Rooney Mara. It's true that it's told confidently, and there is a clear avoidance of melodramatic tropes, but the first half is eminently better than the second - audiences can't seem to resist the closeup individual storytelling which Slumdog Millionaire brought to the world. And the thing is named badly. It's cheaply explained away in the ending credits. Forgettable.