Slumdog Millionaire, rags to riches to Oscars?

Dark comedy in the depths of India’s biggest slum looks toward Oscar win

By Robin Rowe

Slumdog has ten Oscar nominations, not as many as Benjamin Button, which leads with thirteen. However, having captured top honors at every awards show to date, Slumdog Millionaire is easily the favorite to win the Academy Award for best picture.

Slumdog Millionaire, the little $14 million picture shot in the slums of India, is on it’s way to grossing $100 million. “I’d never been to India,” says Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle. “Because India is a democracy, the slums have become incredibly powerful places politically. They have a lot of people in them. There are a lot of votes in a small area.”

Boyle’s crew flew to India and shot the film in its largest slum Dharavi, and in Juhu, next to the airport and clearly visible by anyone flying into Mumbai. The population is estimated to be more than one million in that area alone. “We put as many of those real slum-dwelling people in the film as we could get,” says Boyle. “It’s actually a thriving, bustling mini-metropolis.”

Not only new celebrities Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, kids plucked by Boyle from the slums of Mumbai are being included in Hollywood’s most glamorous party. The recognition Slumdog Millionaire has received is a great source of pride to India and gives hope to Hollywood’s Indian actors that there will be more film roles for them. India itself is a contradiction.

“What is extraordinary about India is that it’s one of the world’s leading nuclear powers,” says Boyle. “It’s got nuclear weapons. So it’s in the top six or eight nuclear powers in the world. But on the other hand, there are no public toilets.”

Toilets figure prominently in Slumdog Millionaire in two key scenes. “What is it about the British and toilets?” asks Boyle who also shot a famous toilet scene in Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle had to ask his young actor to look as though he’d fallen into a cess pit. “Everyone asks what we really used,” says Boyle. “We covered him in chocolate and peanut butter. He smelled delicious.”

Will the Academy find Slumdog Millionaire delicious? Will it be the big winner everyone expects?