Slumdog Millionaire Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Slumdog Millionaire - Movie Review Example The plight was similar in both situations – the poor remained desperately poor – but how they actually eked out a living changed considerably. The three characters in this movie were Jamal, his brother Salim, and Latika. Jamal and Salim are orphans – their mother was killed during a raid on Muslim people, and Latika was a waif who happened upon the boys’ camp, and they took her in. During the first part of the movie, they were shown making a living by dealing with trash, trying to find things to sell. A man named Maman finds the boys and tricks them into working for him. Maman’s plan was to recruit young boys to learn how to sing, then he blinds them, as blind singers earn more money begging than non-blind singers do. They escape from Maman, and they eke out a living by pretending to be tour guides for the Taj Mahal and picking pockets. This was how the first part of the movie was portrayed – the boys lived on the streets and stayed fed and clothed by acting like one would imagine a street urchin would act. One of the boys who was blinded by Maman was later seen singing in a subway tunnel. Salim and Jamal earned a living by selling things that they found in the trash or by conning people. However, this was when Mumbai was still Bombay. Bombay turned into Mumbai, and the difference in the overall landscape was striking. This was made clear in a scene where Salim and Jamal are atop a skyscraper that was in the process of being built. Salim said to Jamal that all that they were seeing – the modernity of the great city, with gleaming skyscrapers and a thriving business district – was on the site where they once grew up in the slums. This was meant to denote that the city had changed considerably since Jamal and Salim were boys. And, with the change from Bombay into Mumbai, came a change in how the boys earned their money. Jamal, for his part, was able to make money legitimately by being a part of a call center that answered