By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Garth Davis
Cast: Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Suny Pawar, David Wenham and Nicole Kidman.
Rating: Excellent.
Australian director Garth Davis, makes his feature film directiorial debut with “Lion” and this couldn’t have been a better start.
Based on real life events “Lion” tells the story of young Saroo Brierly (Sunny Pawar) a 5 year old boy who gets lost in a train that travels from India to Calcutta.
He will survive the challenges on living in the streets and how to manage on his own until Sue Brierly (Nicole Kidman) and her husband John (David Wenham) an australian couple decide to bring him to Australia and adopt him.
Now a 20 year old Saroo (Dev Patel) is more mature and decides to go to Melbourne where she will meet Lucy (Rooney Mara) the girl who eventually will become his girlfriend.
In a lunch with his friends Saroo has an old memory from his childhood and decides to question himself what happen to his biological parents.
He is told about Google Earth by one of his friends. So Saroo now will begin a quest for the truth and to answer the questions about his origins and roots.
One of many things that I liked from “Lion” was that it is a true and inspiring story. Garth Davis debut as a director was a very good one and it can lead to a promising career.
The way how he directed his actors and camera movements where very well executed and the performances he directed were filled with truth and there is not a single moment where they is any overacting moments, which has been a notoroius tendency.
The screenplay written by Luke Davies, not only he adapted the book “A Long Walk Home” by Saroo Brierly but happens to be his first credit as a screenwriter and he adapted a very fine screenplay. Davies knew well how to connect the dots and wrote most of the film by Saroo’s point of view and it worked.
The only thing that for moments didn’t work were flashbacks of Saroo when he is 20 years old and he is screaming his Saroo’s in the train station of India. At the same I understand the point on why he used certain flashbacks and it makes sense but if they could have cut out two of them it still could have been a very good movie.
The performances by the cast specially Nicole Kidman, who is fantastic playing Saroo’s mom is convincing and plays a loving mother with so much heart.
The performances by Dev Patel, Rooney Mara and David Wenham are truthful and you feel an instanst connection with this characters.
The message of the film I liked the way it was executed that is not giving up on hope and try to cherish all the moments that life has giving you; it’s seen in an original way that has never been seen on film and works at all levels.
“Lion” is one of the revelations of 2016, that is almost ending and I give it a huge recommendation for the direction from Garth Davis, Screenplay and Performances.