![]() Has this global fame affected you or your families in any way? The media attention started from the day I met my (Indian) mother – just an hour later, and for the next four days. For the past five years, you and your two families have been under a spotlight, starting from when you found your birth mother here in 2012. But the typical 'Tassie' also discusses how 'where you're from' is dividing people today, and what he hopes his story stands for, in a chat with DT. That's certainly a conversation starter with Saroo, who was at the Australian high commission in Delhi recently. He was reunited with his siblings too, except for his eldest brother, who’d passed away the night Saroo was lost. Almost a year later, he landed up at that tumbledown dwelling, and just as serendipitously as the rest of his life, found his birth mother living just a few metres away. Using his vivid memories, he followed the digital trail to Ganesh Talai in Khandwa, to the very room they lived in. ![]() Five years of obsessively poring over much of the Indian landscape later, he finally chanced upon Burhanpur, the railway station from where he’d boarded the train. It helped that his family, especially Sue, were extremely inclusive and open – they chose to adopt two Indian children despite having kids of her own – and when he was about 25, Saroo finally started looking for his Indian family using Google Earth. Saroo, which is how he mispronounced Sheru (hence the film’s name, Lion), stuck, and the boy grew up into a regular Aussie guy – except with very vivid and detailed memories of his childhood in India, including of the way his home and locality looked. Eventually, he was taken in by an orphanage, and from there, he was adopted by Sue and John Brierley of Hobart, Tasmania. Scared, lost and illiterate, he couldn’t communicate enough to ask for help, and somehow survived the streets of that city for months, dodging dangers like abuse and drugs, fighting poverty and starvation. Left alone, he boarded a train that took him to Kolkata. Their father had left their mother and started a family with his second wife. His by-now-famous story is that in 1986, Saroo was Sheru Munshi Khan, a five-year-old from a poor family in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, out for the night at a nearby railway station with his older brother. The script, based on Saroo Brierley’s book A Long Way Home, often struggles to expand what’s ultimately a rather short story into a two hour movie, which risks diluting the power of the initial scenes.But 'Lion' is a real-life story, and the man whom Dev portrays, the Australian Saroo Brierley, has been a global celebrity long before Hollywood happened to him. The drama of Saroo’s search is also mainly limited to a computer screen and we’re left with an unanswered question of whether he’s spent time looking for his family in the years inbetween. But once his memories of back home are reawakened, the film flips into soul-searching mode and stays here for far too long. There are some nicely-observed scenes where we see him struggle with the privilege he now has, at odds with the poverty of his youth, and the conflict of cultures, unsure where he should be placed. Patel, who is too often caught in broad roles, is given a chance to go deeper and, mostly, he succeeds as a man trapped between two worlds and two identities. Because of the urgency and suspense of these initial scenes, there’s an inevitable dip in pace as we skip forward to meet Saroo as a man. ![]() The descent from the loving warmth of his family to the harshness of the streets has a nightmarish quality and we’re pulled along with him, nervous for his safety and eager for levity. Thanks largely to an affecting performance from newcomer Sunny Pawar, the first act is horribly effective. As he learns about the advent of Google Earth, he starts a difficult journey to find his family. As he combines a hotel management course and a burgeoning romance with a fellow classmate (a somewhat thankless role for Rooney Mara), he becomes haunted by the world he left behind. Saroo soon feels at home, comforted by the affection and calm after a harrowing experience, and grows up into a confident and ambitious 30-year-old, played by Dev Patel. But one day, the unimaginable happens as the brothers are separated and five-year-old Saroo finds himself on a train going cross country.Īrriving in Calcutta, unfamiliar with the language and unsure how to return home, he winds up in an orphanage that sees him adopted by a couple in Australia, played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham. Two brothers, Saroo and Guddu, live in rural India and spend their days seeking out odd jobs to help their mother fund their home. From the outset, it’s a film that’s impossible not to find hugely involving. It’s easy to see why with a strong cast, international themes and an emotional true story. A lot rides on this year’s crop and Lion is a film that’s been talked up as a major contender.
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