what is Slumdog Millionaire actually all about?
It’s the story of Jamal Malik, an uneducated 18-year-old from the slums of Mumbai, India who is one question away from winning the grand prize of 20 million rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The makers of the show assume that Malik is cheating, so they turn him over to the authorities, who torture and interrogate him in an effort to uncover how he has been so successful on the game show. Through a series of flashbacks, we discover how Jamal knew the answers to the questions – each answer coming from Jamal’s real-life experiences surviving in the slums of India. The flashbacks introduce us to Jamal’s older brother Salim and the love of Jamal’s life, Latika. Growing up, Jamal dreamed that the three street kids could be like The Three Musketeers, but fate, and his brother’s ulterior motives, keep that from becoming a reality. We also come to learn what motivated Jamal to go on Millionaire in the first place, a decision that had nothing to do with the 20 millio
