Movie Review: 'Lion'

This is a true-story flick about a little boy of five named Saroo, who gets lost from the safe shelter of his elder brother Guddu, when he can’t control over his sleep in a strange, stationary train which is destined to depart. Next morning, the horrified Saroo runs in the running train to find a way out, wails out for help, but can come out only at the Kolkata station swarmed with the sea of uncaring travellers. Unaware that his family is about a thousand miles away, unknown to the local language and locations, Saroo stands strong in the face of adversities till the time an affectionate Australian couple adopts him and gifts him a privileged life. The transformation from the godforsaken to the well-educated Saroo escapes one thing: his want for finding and getting back to his original home. Thanks to the advent of Google Earth, his subdued want for his roots gets rekindled and without surprise, the story culminates in a sublime reunion with happy tears.  

Director Garth Davis does a brilliant job. I was totally blown by the ways certain scenes are captured. The moments showing the sights of the deathly silent, deserted railway station where Saroo calls out for Guddu, the scene in which Saroo demonstrates Guddu how he can lift any weight by lifting a cycle with gritted teeth, how their mother blithely watches her kids having a bowl of milk, and how the lost Saroo enquires helplessly at the railway ticket window about his home while frequently being elbowed aside.  

Dev Patel is spot on as an adopted grownup in late twenties, constantly battling with the thoughts and whereabouts of his lost family. But the showstopper is Sunny Pawar, the younger Saroo. He is so phenomenal in his expressions that he virtually dims everything and everyone sharing a screen space with him. His breathtaking intensity is such that it makes you stop your munching midway in the theatre the moment you watch him sitting hungrily outside of the restaurant imitating a soup-relishing guy with his garbage-given spoon.

This is a movie that displays two starkly opposite images of humanity and evokes strong emotions not only of sympathy, sorrow, and happiness but also of love and gratitude. Lion is not only watchable but strictly unmissable; because it is feelable.