Slumdog Millionarie - Script Analysis

Slumdog Millionaire. Nominated for ten Oscars. Won eight, including the top writing award. Won the WGA top prize. Over one hundred international awards. Also commercially successful.

Some reasons why it was successful:

1. It executed the basic principle of drama: somebody sympathetic wants something badly and is having trouble getting it. We have a very sympathetic character struggling against great odds to attain a great objective. The objective is love. The objective remains the same throughout the story. The chase morphs, i.e., the method of attaining the goal changes, but the goal is the same.

2. Expanded version of the principles of drama: protag, objective, antag, knockout climax.

a. A sympathetic protag. Amir is made sympathetic by the following:
- Chasing a great love is always sympathetic.
- Loses his mother.
- A poor kid trying to survive.
- He has joie de vivre.
- He fights Prem, an unsympathetic person, and gets in a few punches of his own.
- He resists torture, and gets in a few punches of his own.
- He’s a David and Goliath character.
- He doesn’t know when to quit. Fighting against all odds is sympathetic.

b. An objective.
Long term objectives:
- Get Latika.
- Win the mill.

Short term objectives:
- Escape the guard.
- Escape the rioting mob.
- Become a Taj guide.

c. An antagonist.
- Prem.
- Salim.

d. Knockout climax. Amir wins the money, gets the girl, Salim redeems himself.

3. Complex characters. Amir and Latika are great characters; Salim is complex.

Good:
- Saves Amir from blinding.
- Returns to Mumbai with Amir.
- Saves Amir and Latika with his gun.
- When Amir calls him from the call center, Salim is happy.
- Sacrifices all for Amir and Latika.

Bad:
- Wants to be a gangster.
- Threatens the baby.
- Kicks Amir out of the room after finding Latika.
- Cuts Latika and takes her away from Amir.
Which side he will end up on is in doubt until the end. A very strong character, arguably the most interesting, certainly the most complex. A great addition to the story.

4. Relationships: Writer Simon Beaufoy is a master of relationships. The Full Monty was packed with them, as is SDM. Screenwriting experts often talk about creating great characters; less frequently do they talk about creating great relationships. Relationships can substitute for characters. For example, in The Full Monty, there isn’t much character arc but there is huge relationship arc.

5. Escapism and Authenticity. A major reason audiences patronize films is escapism: to be transported for a few minutes to a better world, where better things happen. “In real life you never get justice. In film, you get it in two hours.” For westerners, SDM provides that magical transportation. For Indians, who see street kids, corrupt officials and dancing actors every day, there’s no exotic, explaining the “ho-hum” reaction of some Indians.

Authenticity is a big part of escapism. The audience has to be truly convinced they are in a different world. Otherwise they won't suspend their disbelief. SDM hits the mark with authenticity: the language, the cinematography, the characters were all spot on accurate.

6. Sophisticated story telling.
Last weekend in Delhi, I saw an auto rickshaw driver. He was racing through Delhi traffic, driving with his knees, talking into two mobile phones AND cursing anyone who crossed his path, my taxi for one. Moral: we live in a multitasking world. In film, you can’t give an audience a single protag with a single linear plotline and expect them to be interested.

A Russian friend told me she used to work in Moscow, in film theaters, doing real time translation. After a while, she had to leave the job, from boredom, because the stories all became the same, predictable. John August’s blog recently made the point how in cinema, the audience and the story teller are involved in a kind of cognitive "arms race". The story teller deploys a technique - say, three act structure - which works for a while. Then the audience develops a counter weapon, boredom, “we’ve seen this before”. The story teller develops a new story telling weapon: the audience responds positively for a while, then counters with “ho-hum.” Moral: we live in a world of rapid innovation, cognitive as well as material. Writers can't trot out the same techniques and expect to dazzle audiences.

SDM uses flashbacks, simultaneous and non-linear story lines, multiple subplots, multiple objectives, multiple antagonists, multiple allies, ... and it does it elegantly. There’s a lot of technique in this script, perhaps even enough to keep a Delhi auto-rickshaw driver interested.

7. THE Basic Storytelling technique. Early in the story, say by the end of act 1, create a compelling question that the audience wants to be answered. In The Searchers, it's "Where's Debby?" In SDM, it's "Will Amir get Lathika?" If the question is compelling enough, the audience will stay to the end, perhaps even tolerating a few weaknesses in the film.