Slumdog Millionaire

Another one down off of the motion picture winner list - Slumdog Millionaire! A great movie; it definitely deserved the honor of being the best movie of the year. Matt and I have been trying to see this movie since it came out - we rented it once from Red Box and kept it for a few days, and even checked it out (twice) from the library. And yet somehow we never saw it. Thankfully, Blockbuster Express still has it, so this week we joined the millions of those that love this movie.

If you haven't seen it, you need to. The movie flicks back and forth between current day and the past of a "slumdog" that led him to being - and succeeding - on the Indian gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I saw that this movie was dubbed the "feel good movie of the year", which is a little funny to me when I think about how to describe the plot. Matt pointed out that it shows every type of person-on-person injustice you can think of: slavery, torture, sex-trade, theft, gangs, mob violence, and more. Yet it does so in bite-sized pieces that don't leave you feeling sick, but oddly...empowered, maybe? Like you can conquer the world. Like you can overcome any obstacle. Like you are more aware of the evils around you, but you can wade through all the bad the world gives you to reach the goal.


It also makes me a little ashamed of myself. It reminds me that my bad days are nothing like the bad days so many experience. I don't live in fear of hunger, of homelessness, of violence, or of everyone around me. My problems are minuscule. And yet sometimes I become consumed with my problems and what I am going through. This was a healthy reminder that I need to be focused outward and helping and loving others, because I have been given so much.