Lion is the story of Saroo, a young boy living somewhere in India. He's quite poor, but he has a mother, sister, and older brother who care greatly for him. That is, until he accidentally gets trapped on a train for several days and separated thousands of kilometers from them. He is unable to remember the name of the town he lives in and has no way to reconnect with his family. After living on the streets of Calcutta for a few months, he's eventually adopted by an Australian family. He grows up happily for 20 years until he finally decides that he needs to find his family in India. The incredible thing is that this is a true story. A common one too. The film is based on Saroo Brieley's book about his life story. It's an incredible journey.
Lion is broke into two parts. The first part is Saroo as a five-year old boy. After establishing his relationship with his family, the movie shows how he gets stuck on the train and how he survives in Calcutta. I've never been to India, but it doesn't feel like they exaggerated much about how some people live there. The young Saroo (Sunny Pawar) does a great job. He isn't the most naturalistic actor, but who is at - well - however old he is? That's half the run time of the film. That second part features Saroo (Dev Patel) as a grown man. Despite having a loving family in Australia (parents played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham in small, but significant supporting roles), he is haunted by the family he lost. This is even getting in the way of his ability to have relationships, most notably with a girl named Lucy, played by Rooney Mara. Eventually he becomes obsessed with finding his Indiana family and reuniting with them.
I don't want to fully give away the ending although you can already guess most of the beats. I'll go ahead and tell you that the film is all in service to those last few minutes. It spends so much time with young Saroo so that it can sell the audience on how much Saroo loved his family and how cruelly he was separated from them. The story sags a little in the middle while it tries to make someone searching on GoodMaps interesting. It's all worth it once you get to the end. If you can finish watching this without getting at least a little misty-eyed, then you are at least a little dead inside.
Lion is a pretty simple movie. It has good performances from Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, and Nicole Kidman. It makes good use of the Indian setting, perhaps reveling in the poverty a little too much. It struggles to fill the time in the middle some, but it's all worth it for the powerful ending.
Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend
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