Lion follows five-year old Saroo as he gets lost far from home in bustling and chaotic Calcutta. His train ride days from home, doesn’t speak the language and his family can’t be found. Far from home, Saroo is later adopted out to an Aussie couple. As an adult, he decides he needs to reach out to his biological family. The true story of Saroo Brierley sounds like soap-opera melodrama, but is a sweet movie of the ties that bind. What makes a family and our capacity to love is explored in a film that had our full-house session reaching for the tissues.
After being told about this new online page, Google Earth, adult Saroo begins to trace his home town, in search for the family left behind. The basic look and smaller search functions were worked on by Google, dragging up their old work and helping the film tell its story as realistically as they did. In return, we’re reminded of how new the Internet is.
The young actor playing Saroo, Indian newcomer, Sunny Pawar, is an absolute delight. A non-English speaking, non-actor, Pawar is wonderful. He holds his own against major stars and expresses complex emotion simply. Played by Dev Patel as an adult and as an Aussie, I am happy to confirm that the rumours are true, Patel does a killer Aussie accent in this Indian-Australian co-production. Patel brings a depth and love to this role, anchoring the heart-wrenching melodrama to the reality of the lives led.
Supporting actress, Nicole Kidman, has her own adopted children and there is a strong sense of the affinity she has with the Tasmanian mum she plays. Kidman’s 80s fashion is delicious too. The family, with husband played by an under utilised David Wenham, raised are excellent in supporting the notion that family is what you make. That through hard times, love binds us together.
Debut film director Garth Davis. Davis previous work includes well-received adverts such as the Tooheys Tongue – unsettling and fascinating – and a vast portion of critically acclaimed television show, Top of the Lake. His short film, Alice, is a quietly engaging glance at still-birth.
Lion‘s cinematography is arresting, displaying the vast expanses surrounding the Indian village Saroo goes missing from, and the Tasmanian wilderness that he later grows up in. Some of the editing in sleeping sequences is abrupt, though it could be argued that it lends to the story’s narrative techniques.
Sometimes you come out of a film, asking, what can I do next? Saroo’s early experiences as a lost child, and we see the aftermath particularly of his adoptive brother, Mantosh, are frightening. The strength and resilience it took for these boys to survive alone is large part of the emotional impact. With 80,000 children going missing in India each year, the film team has ties with local charities to help promote and provide assistance. That helpless feeling you have for the little boy lost, is given a website to visit and contribute. The website is sparse and also includes a competition you can enter without a donation. However, it also promotes, Magic Bus, Lifeline 1098, and Railway Children. Not having heard of these charities before, begins a wonder online to find what makes them effective.
Without resorting to hackneyed sentimentality, Lion is emotionally traumatic, life-affirming and ultimately, a feel good film.
Lion is out 19th March