Lion, 2016
Directed by Garth Davis
Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, Sunny Pawar, Abhishek Bharate
Based on the true story of Saroo Brierley, Dev Patel leads this gentle ode to family. Five-year-old Saroo (Pawar) was found wandering the streets of Calcutta, having ridden the train 1,500 kilometers from home and screaming for his big brother Guddu (a compassionate Bharate). With nothing more than a first name, a mom named mom and the five-year-old mispronunciation of his hometown, Saroo was sent to an orphanage.
He was adopted by Sue and John Brierley (real life adopted mother Kidman and David Wenham) of Tasmania, Australia and joined by his adopted brother Mantosh (Divian Ladwa). He learned English, forgot Hindi and became Australian.
Saroo studied hotel management in Canberra and it was with some friends there, with a bite of food that sends him back to his last day with his brother, that he tells them all the truth of his complicated history. A friend suggests trying to use Google Earth to trace back the trains he rode and the streets he walked. Girlfriend Lucy (Mara) encourages him to try but out of love for the family he has now, he can’t bring himself to try.
It takes years to sink into obsession but Saroo eventually quits his job and spends all his time with a map, laptop and push pins, working through the image of his birth mother’s smile and the sound of his brother’s screams.
What Davis has done in his portrayal of this extraordinary story is walk you through it as Saroo did, with the heart-melting Sunny Pawar leading us across the butterflied quarry his mother worked in, the fragrant markets his brother piggy-backed him through, the three-dimensional hunger of homelessness in Calcutta. Patel picks up where Pawar’s wide, accepting eyes left off, with such devotion to his adopted parents that he cannot bring himself to tell them how much the mystery of his past is breaking him.
The cinematography is marked by sweeping Indian landscapes and bright colors, a blend of the fairy-tale like memories of five-year-old Saroo and aerial shots that adult Saroo desperately followed across the computer screen.
The connection between these two actors is magnetic, despite never being on screen together, as is the angelic portrayal of their brother Guddu. Set to a powerful score, it’s a movie that will land you in a puddle of tears. Happy, heart-breaking tears.
And after seeing the actual footage of Saroo’s search you’ll call home to tell your mom you love her.
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