The real star of this film is Sunny Pawar. Perhaps a little too young to be picking up the Academy awards for best actor, the picture posted by Samuel L Jackson of him with Sunny stating 'the real winner for best leading actor' is more than accurate. I haven't seen 'Manchester By The Sea' and I am told that it is really good, it's just not my sort of film, there are parts of it from reading the synopsis that I wouldn't like to watch. I'm not stating that Casey Afflect doesn't deserve his awards because he probably does but this kid has such a bright future! They sold this film on the names of Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and David Wenham because no one knew who this boy was but they really should have been selling it on the name of Sunny Pawar. He could not have a better introduction to a career in film than what he has just given on that screen. Everyone that has seen 'Lion' takes their hat off to him and looks forward to seeing him in a lot more films.
Lion is emotional and Dev Patel doesn't even make his screen entrance until halfway through. Sunny Pawar is the lead until he is adopted by an Australian couple. As stated at the start this film is based on a true story- the character of the film did lose his family in India one night, ended up on a train to Calcutta, ran away from a woman attempting to pass him off to bad people and eventually get adopted by an Australian couple, who in this film are played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham. Those two characters are special because they try their hardest to be the best parents possible and only towards the end of the film do they explain that they can have children but chose to give a better life to children with a tough past than to bring another child in to the world and only be able to give them an okay life. That is an important message because we assume that couples who adopt do so because they are unable to have their own children but that isn't always the case.
Nicole Kidman was stunning, both her and David Wenham were fantastic but Kidman's character had more screen time and her emotionally display was perfect. I don't know the exact events of this true story but Dev Patel was convincing with his accent and even more so of being a adult who has a really decent life until he moves to Melbourne to complete a course and meets a few other Indians. The memories of his time in India makes him spend a lot of time on Google Earth trying to find his home town and find a way back to his mother. It is a painful trip and his relationship starts to dissolve because of it but it is important to him and even though he pushes everyone away they all stand by him so that when he does find his family again and his mum accepts that he has a life and a family in Australia he still has something to return to.
Rooney Mara makes another appearance on the blog (and I didn't even know who she was until I watched Carol) in another supporting role. Only because I had seen the name did I know in the back of my mind that it was her. I didn't recognise her in this role and I think that she played the best kind of girlfriend anyone could want. Hurt by the separation but not giving up on him and never stopped caring. We all make mistakes and have difficult moments in life but we need someone to not run away from us or let us push them away and she was that character. She was fantastic and hopefully she will be another one who makes headlines very soon if she chooses the right films.
The message at the end of the emotional train ride we all take while watching this film is that 80,000 children go missing in India every year and that this film is working in partnership with organisations to reduce that amount. In every country people go missing and there are organisations all over the world trying to reduce the number of disappearances to zero.
There was no way that this film would win 'best film' or expect to pick up many awards because of the nature of the film but Dev Patel would have been worthy of the supporting award and had Pawar been a lot older he could have picked up an award for his performance as well.
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