Lion

If film-art is the pursuit of visual pleasure, powerful storytelling and high emotional impact, then Lion (2016) is the year's high-water mark for Australian productions. Based on the novel A Long Way Home (2014), this film adaptation is a richly textured essay on the primal human need for belonging that will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered who they are.

This true story is told in two parts and filmed across two continents. Five year-old Saroo is a ragamuffin sidekick to his older brother Guddo, two poor boys who support their family by stealing coal and scavenging trains in their West Bengal village. They become separated one night and Saroo finds himself alone on a train heading to the other side of India. He he joins hordes of homeless children who must fend off predators while begging to survive. Eventually he is placed in a crowded orphanage, then adopted by two big-hearted and childless Tasmanians, Sue (Nicole Kidman) and John (David Wenham). Twenty years on, Saroo (Dev Patel) begins to have memory flashbacks of his native land. As they increase in intensity, he becomes obsessed with finding his family. With some luck and Google maps, the story comes full circle.

There is so much that makes this film stand out. The storytelling is more than engaging: it is so captivating that the two-hour run-time feels like an hour. Acting performances are outstanding: Nicole Kidman is at her best while the five year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is the heart of the film and Dev Patel its soul. The cinematography is brilliant, especially the filming in India. The camera-work is both expansive and intimate, shifting often from sweeping aerial panoramas of mountainous Indian countryside and tranquil Tasmanian waterways to narrow winding alleys, village markets, and the inner-world of Saroo's turmoil. Some of the most powerful scenes are shot from the eye-level of a terrified lost boy jostled by masses of humanity and the close-ups of Saroo's painful face desperate to know home. The colour palette is exotic, sound track emotionally intense, and the directing finds a rhythm that is almost orchestral.

This film offers an immensely satisfying cinematic experience: visually stunning, narratively powerful, and an emotional whirlwind. It comes at the end of a very mixed year for Australian film, with some of the world's finest produced but many that are less than inspiring. Lion is one of those films that will appeal to everyone and it has a very long after-taste. It easily tops my film year.

'Lion' showed a lot of promise. There was potential for a very powerful story, had heard a lot of good things about it (as seen from many positive reviews and a high rating here) and there is a lot of talent involved. A lot of my friends had said how much it touched them, as have many reviewers here, and it seemed like my kind of film.

Fortunately, 'Lion' was a film that had great potential and mostly lived up to it. Cannot say that for many recent viewings, with a few too many wastes of good concepts and potential (along with wastes of talent, that is a bugbear of mine because it feels like somewhat of a slap of the face) so that there was a film that did not waste it was refreshing and restored a bit of faith. It is a very good film, albeit it was very nearly a great film. That it wasn't the great film all the way through than when it started is something of a shame, but there are so many great qualities all the same.

It is an uneven film sure, starting with the negatives. The second half is not as strong as the first half, it is not as compellingly paced and the clarity of storytelling is less good, some of it feeling vague. That is not to say it is unwatchable, it is still touching in spots in a film that is quite the emotional experience.

Rooney Mara also came over to me as the cast's weak link. She didn't look very interested and her character felt like a misplaced and underwritten plot device.

However, 'Lion's' first half is wonderful. Hugely compelling and very emotional, and what is meant by why the film very nearly was great. The whole film though was poignant, and count me in as another film who has become tougher generally over the year but got through several tissues by the film's end.

Throughout, 'Lion' is beautifully filmed and complements the beautiful sceneries very well. Scoring and sound never come over as obvious or intrusive. The script provokes thought, charms and moves. The story is never dull and the emotional impact never feels forced or manipulative.

Garth Davis does a very good job directing. Aside from Mara, the cast are very good. Dev Patel's performance here is perhaps the best seen from him personally and David Wenham and Nicole Kidman are similarly excellent. The star here though is Sunny Pawar who is just outstanding, have not seen a child performance this good in a long time, it is perhaps among the best ever.

In conclusion, very good and very nearly great. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Whenever I wander in the streets of the Moroccan Medina, I feel at home. There's that strange mixture of various fragrances floating in the air: spices, kebab, frying delicacies (not much different from these appetizing jelabis), sea spray from the fish market, tanned leather from the shoe shop and this whole conglomerate smell outsiders or tourists might feel stinky, but as far as "my" senses are concerned, "there's no place like home". I didn't pick it, it picked me.

And maybe there's something innately circular about life, we're born home, we move close or far from it, and there's the need to get back. I even have a personal theory: that even your children can find a deep "connection" with the place you were born in, your home will also feel like home for them. And it is indeed "A Long Way Home", the poignant and inspiring story of Saroo Brierley, born in India, lost at the age of five, adopted by an Australian couple and reuniting with his mother and his family twenty-five years later. What else can be said? It's a simple story but it's often in the most plain-looking grounds that you can find the most precious gems.

Garth Davis' "Lion" is indeed simple in its storytelling; it's linear and straightforward in its clarity. Basically the whole first hour shows poor Saroo looking for his brother Guddu in hostile and overcrowded streets of Calcutta and finding a few moments of relief interrupted by adults, and in the huge lottery of karma, some can look extremely friendly and have sinister motives. But good fate sides with little Saroo and one lucky encounter leading to another, a couple of Australian tourist discovers the 'wanted notice' published in a newspaper and they instantly fall in love with the kid and adopt him. Saroo is then taught English and good manners.

Then, something interesting happens: while I expected some resistance, he actually tries to fit in his new family as if he's aware that there's something really providential in that couple of good-hearted people from Tasmania, played by Nicole Kidman and David Brienham. The one twist that spoils the family harmony is the adoption of a mentally troubled and self-harming Indian boy named Mantosh one year later. "Lion" manages to say a lot without words, from the reaction of Sunny Pawar, who does a fine, subtle, acting job, I could feel that he didn't welcome this arrival with much enthusiasm but wouldn't display jealousy out of love for his new mom.

And the way he grew up was in line with the character. Dev Patel finally makes his entrance as a brilliant young man in his mid-twenties, ready to embrace studies in hotel management, he's also a nice guy like you seldom see in movies, no tortured soul, no rebel, no wimp either and respectful toward his parents. Seeing Patel again made me regret how harshly I judged "Slumdog Millionnaire" but I never commented his acting but a script that took a rather simplistic turn near the end. So, I was glad to see Patel again, playing another guy trying to find a loved one through a "modern device" but I hoped Davis wouldn't derail the film from its beautiful simplicity.

And I had a good scare when his soon-to-be girlfriend, played by Rooney Mara, started improvising a little dance on the streets as it almost felt like there would be some Bollywood number, but it was just her twisted way to seduce him, and it worked… well, to some degree. Personally, she struck me as a too cold and sophisticated girl, I didn't buy that a guy so warm and "sunny" like Saroo would fall in love with a younger version of Kristin Scott Thomas. Even the love scenes made me wonder if Mara wasn't still under the influence of her previous romance in "Carol". Never mind, the center of the movie were Patel and Kidman and as soon as Patel has this delicate 'Proust Madeleine' moment, the story takes off and with the miracle of "Google Earth", Saroo tries to find the way back home.

The film tries to inject some 'suspense' in that powerful journey but that wasn't necessary, I think they could have just compressed the 'research' within the last weeks before Saroo's departure and avoided these little 'pending' moments, only to focus on the relationship with his adoptive mother and some emotional insights about the heights of generosity some hearts can reach. There were many heartfelt statements about adoption that could have enriched the story but the girlfriend allowed Saroo to explain his existential crisis to the audience without never really existing on her own, I didn't care for her anyway. The tormented brother could have made a more interesting foil for Saroo and would have provided a fine back-story paralleling Saroo's experience.

While "Lion" isn't flawless, it's a movie whose emotional power relied on the ending, and when Saroo was getting closer to his home, I could find my own heart beating, that's for the empathy… and that was the price to pay, to earn that teary explosion of happiness and a few emotionally rewarding revelations, concluding one of the few 2016 movies of universal appeal. Indeed, If there ever was one statement to sum up the general appeal of movies, or stories regardless of their narrative medium, I would quote the late Roger Ebert who said "The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone".

Truer words have never been spoken indeed. Garth Davis' "Lion" might have an Australian-Indian protagonist but anyone can relate to him, from India, Iceland, Jamaica, Morocco or any part of the world.

It's the story of my life. I was born in Bangalore in 1983 and I was adopted by an Italian family when I was almost two years old. My father told me that the nuns found me on the street, and they took me to an orphanage in Solur. My father made a very difficult journey to come and get me and we stayed a month in India before returning to Italy. unfortunately I do not remember anything of that world and for me it will be very difficult to understand where I was born but one day I will come back. I have to go back This film change my life..

To put it in simple words, "Lion" is a journey that grabs you entirely ; whether you want it or not, you are a part of each and every scene. Exactly like the hero, you find yourself having visions of a past that you think you have forgotten, you long for something more and you dig for something deeper. This is a journey back home, filled with emotions, hard decisions, and an infinite willingness to reach somewhere safe.. Simple story, dream like sequences and real characters that are aware that "there are no white pages" but that in a way, there is always a black ink somewhere that you can use to finish the endless books that you have in your head. A gem and must see. Highly recommended for the cast's performances, the musical score and the emotional layer that refuses to let you go even after the movie had ended.