REVIEW: Lion (2016)

November 22, 2017 Add Comment Edit

A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia. 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

Director: Garth Davis

"LION deserves to be a nominee for Best Picture in the Oscars 2017. It’s raw. It’s innocent. It tugs the right heart strings. It will give you a good cry, unbelievable joy and will make you sentimental than you will ever be.

LION is a true story about a five-year-old Indian boy named Saroo. His life drastically changed when he was separated from his older brother named Guddu in 1986 – in a train station miles away from home and eventually, ended up on the other side of the world – very far from his family.

There were lots of vital moments in the movie that will leave you hurting but for me, the top of it all is most probably when the grown up Saroo played by Dev Patel confessed to his adoptive Australian mother that he was seeking his family back in India through Google Earth – that he was counting so many sleepless nights researching for the missing piece of his life. He kept is as a secret because he was afraid of hurting the family that had been so generous and very supportive of him. His family plucked him out of the streets and in a big facility for street children.

Nicole Kidman, who plays Saroo’s adoptive mother, Sue, gave also a big impact in the movie when she revealed the reason why she and her husband adopter him. It was such an honest emotion coming from a mother – very tender and very caring.

Rooney Mara. She plays as a supportive girlfriend to Saroo and I don’t want to think that she was a waste in a movie. She was one of the proofs that Saroo led a normal life while he was creating a life for himself. She also had been very supportive of him while he was seeking his birth family.

Sunny Pawar. This kid with raw emotions and very open eyes. I can’t help but fall in love with this kid. It’s truly amazing that this newcomer blew any many. I can feel he is going to go places in the future.

Dev Patel. From the award-winning Slumdog Millionaire to the many TV shows and movies he has been, his journey in Hollywood has been amazing. Playing as the older Saroo, he showed the world that even if you have everything, there will always be that someone or something that will haunt you for your contentment and completeness.

The movie will move you in so many ways and it doesn’t matter if you are adopted or not or if you have lost any sibling or parent or not. It gives you a whole lot more than that – life and love."

MY FAVORITE QUOTE:

Because we both felt as if... the world has enough people in it. Have a child, couldn't guarantee it will make anything better. But to take a child that's suffering like you boys were. Give you a chance in the world. That's something.