Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Garth Davis.
Cast: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, David Wenham.
We are living in an extraordinary time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting lockdown. Hence, it’s an ideal opportunity to catch up on an optimistic and a positive true story that touches the heart.
Lion is a life-affirming story. It tells of a young Indian boy Saroo Brierley, who is adopted by an Australian couple after getting lost hundreds of kilometers from home. He sets out to find his lost family – 25 years later.
Saroo lives in Tasmania and finds his birth family in India – through Google Earth.
Adapted from his 2014 autobiographical book A Long Way Home, it’s a poignant, real story. The movie takes shape after five-year-old Saroo (played brilliantly by Sunny Pawar) gets lost on a train that takes him thousands of kilometers across India, away from home and family.
He learns to survive alone in Kolkata, then lives in an orphanage before being adopted by Sue and John Brierley (Kidman and Wenham) and flown to a new life in Hobart in the 1980s.
As an adult Saroo (Patel is convincing), armed with only a handful of memories, an unwavering determination and revolutionary technology, sets out to find his ‘missing’ family and finally return to his first home.
Flashbacks reveal his mother (Priyanka Bose) had laboured hard for a living shifting rocks by hand on building sites, while Saroo and his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Karate) pilfer coal and hunt for lost coins on trains.
Director Davis presents a remarkable story. Cinematography by Australian Greig Fraser (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is another plus point.
