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I've just got back from watching the movie and I knew I *had* to write this one before I fell asleep.
Q & A is one of my favorite books of all time. I still remember how all of us had fallen in love with it as 17 year olds. I couldn't wait for the movie to be made. Of course all the Oscar-Golden Globe buzz just made me even more excited.
I had my doubts when I heard snippets of the story but I promised myself to not think of the book while watching the movie. That obviously did not happen. I kept going back to pages and wondering why they changed so much.
Ok, first things first, it is a good movie. Brilliantly shot and edited. A.R Rahman most certainly deserved that Golden Globe and definitely has his name written on that Oscar statuette. The kids were a great cast as well.
I totally understand why so many people have liked the movie. I'll even understand if it actually does sweep all the Oscars. But as a great fan of the book I was left with a sense of loss and disappointment at the end.
The book is no longer called Q & A and everybody who picks up Slumdog Millionaire from a book shelf will end up reading a story completely different from the movie. It makes me sad that even though the sales of the book will pick up, no one will experience the same joy or amazement at what a marvelous piece of literature it really is.
Or maybe that will always be the problem with screen adaptations. The director cannot film every page written but has to make you feel the same emotions as that of the book. And this is where I think we need to appreciate Mira Nair ( for Namesake) and even Satyajit Ray ( who turned two books into a series of three movies).
There was just so much in that movie that wasn't needed. And I'm not one of those who have a problem with all that poverty being shown. The entire second half of the movie was original. It shouldn't be called an adapted screenplay, inspired is actually the right word.
If the same thing had been made in hindi I'm pretty sure it could have easily been labelled as a typical masala-potboiler. Ironically it gets made in English and sweeps the world of its feet.
The biggest problem I have of course is still the title. Funnily enough the book never even mentions the term.
