A Bollywood story to inspire people of Mumbai

I am normally skeptical of raving movie reviews. I'm also wary of European or American filmmakers who set their stories in the shantytowns of the developing world because they tend to romanticize backwardness and peddle stereotypes. And I am suspicious of soap opera themes because they can be too syrupy. All of which made me somewhat reluctant to watch Slumdog Millionaire, British director Danny Boyle's movie recently released in the United States.

But this is indeed the masterpiece that some of its early viewers in various film festivals have been proclaiming.

As is usually the case with great narrative, what makes the story important is not what it tells us but how it is told.