Lion - Movie Review

By
Adonis Monahan
6.5

10

0
6.5

10

Lion

Lion, premiered in 2016, is a real story based on a nonfiction book called A Long Way Home, written by Saroo Brierley. The screenplay was written by Luke Davies who also wrote Beautiful Boy and won an AACTA award for best adapted screenplay for this film.

It was also directed by Garth Davis who won an AACTA award for best direction for this film as well. The movie received six nominations at the academy awards: best picture, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best adapted screenplay, best original score, and best cinematography, yet did not win any.

The cast features Dev Patel, who plays Saroo Brierley, Rooney Mara, who plays Lucy, Nicole Kidman, who plays Sue Brierley, Divian Ladwa, who plays Mantosh Brierley, and David Wenham, who plays John Brierley, among others.

The movie tells the story of a boy in India named Saroo, who was separated from his family in 1986. The first 20 minutes of the movie show the boy’s struggles and how he got lost from his family and from Guddu, his brother.

Saroo is adopted by a lovely couple from Australia, who are Sue and John Brierley, and they raise him as their own. A year later, they adopt another boy from India, named Mantosh, who has suffered greatly from orphanages, and has a severe mental illness.

The movie cuts to 2008 when Sue and John are celebrating Saroo getting into university, but Mantosh is not there with them. Saroo asks his mother, do you really think he is really going to show up? The movie goes on to show that Saroo meets a girl, Lucy, in university, they fall in love, and he starts to go mad over the fact that he cannot find his family from India.

https://revyou.com/uploads/thumbnail-960/1600439054967lion2.webp Lion - Movie Review

Although the movie received numerous accolades, it was all over the place. Every scene is not tied to the one before, and there are several jump cuts created to portray a different moment in Saroo’s life.

It seemed as though the writer picked up the book, flipped through it, and picked random scenes to show in the movie. It does not do the true story justice whatsoever.

Although Patel’s performance was not bad, it was not helped by the awkward scenes like finding his ex-girlfriend in the mall and deciding to just stare at her for a good 30 seconds.

Another performance that was brilliant but was not done justice either, was Kidman’s. Her performance when she acted hurt, brought the audience to tears. However, she was portraying that she was hurt from Saroo and Mantosh’s actions that were not even fully displayed, and only glimpses were shown.

The movie is called Lion, because it turned out that Saroo was mispronouncing his name, and it was actually pronounced “Sheru”, which means Lion. The movie, however, does not portray Saroo, or Sheru’s strength whatsoever. It has several awkward moments from the character, as well as prolonged moments that did not show his rise.

The end of the movie shows that he finally found and reunited with his family in India, in 2012, which was a heartwarming moment mimicking what exactly happened in real life.

Overall, the cinematography was done really well, but the script and the direction fell short and felt flat when portraying this nonfiction story. Overall, the movie gets a rating of 6.5/10.