Lion is a 2016
awards season film about a young boy, Saroo, in India who gets accidentally
separated from his home and eventually adopted by a family in Australia and his
quest, as an adult, to find his family again. The film is directed by Garth
Davis and stars Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Rooney Mara, and Sunny
Pawar. Overall, I didn’t enjoy the film but it has some qualities that might
redeem it and make it worthwhile for some audience members.
To speak to the positives at the outset, I think that the
film has some good performances. Dev Patel as adult Saroo is excellent. As
written, he delivers his character well. Nicole Kidman was also quite good and
she actually has moments that made her one of very few characters I really
cared about in the story. Finally, young Sunny Pawar who plays young Saroo was
extremely solid. His portion was the most believable in the story and I cared
much more about the story at that point as a result.
In addition, I think the film has a wonderful sense of place
and also a thorough realism. Whether it is the scenes in India or Australia, I
felt like I was transported there and that everything was actually real and
happening. It also didn’t skip much or take shortcuts (outside of certain noted
time gaps) which made the film feel more real still. They also dealt with real
language barriers which I think was a big strength as well.
The primary reason I didn’t like this film is because I didn’t
like the characters, and thus I didn’t care about what they had going on in the
film. For example, though Patel was good, the way his character was written and
the choices he made made him extremely unlikeable to me. As a result, when he
hit emotional barriers I didn’t feel sympathy, empathize with his choices, or
remotely care whether he succeeded or failed at the end of the day. Moreover,
this is a film that has a kind of intangible sense of self-importance. It
figures it has a really important story to tell and it lingers on certain beats
too long that makes it feel much more produced than real which is majorly
problematic in a film that aims to be very realistic.
In addition to these problems, it has some story threads
that have no payoff or are given insufficient time to make me care about them
in the slightest. One in particular involving Saroo’s adopted brother stands
out in this regard and was given too much importance for too little payoff.
Overall, I wasn’t a fan of Lion. I do in some ways see what they going for and there is one
particular moment of sweetness that did play with my emotions a bit, but I just
didn’t care about the characters or their struggles as written, nor did I find
that the film manages and wraps up its story points completely.
Ryan’s Score: 5/10
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