LION (2017) movie review

_93656775_d71534f8-df48-41d3-8aca-e3d2e8b77bd5Lion will break your heart. The trail of tears carved along the Indian countryside past too many train platforms to count takes little Saroo too far away from his mama to ever find his way back home.17-lion-oscars-campaign-w710-h473It’s Fievel’s American Tale journey all over again, but this story is true and doesn’t have the peppy tunes to promise a road back home.maxresdefaultThe perfectly cast visual carnival begins in a valley of butterflies, winds into the heart of busy Calcutta streets and flies over oceans all the way to Australia. Our tiny, steadfast hero becomes a man and has to deal with demons from his past, has to reconcile being a little boy lost, and must find his way home with a little help from Google Earth.saroo-brierly-by-dev-patel-in-lion-1000If all stories are meant to teach us survival skills, meant to show us alternative ways to live, to give us hope, this film certainly does all of this. Saroo, the lion-hearted will show us all how to live if we take the time to let him tell his tale.lion-dev-patel-rooney-mara-2

THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY (2016) movie review

TheManWhoKnewInfinityStillThis film posits valuable notions like the incalculable potential of divine inspiration. It also asks: who are we to ponder the value of a life over a life’s work? Mathematical formulas and patterns were art that spoke of God to Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was taken under the wing of G.H. Hardy and who then became a Royal Fellow at Trinity College in Cambridge, England at the turn of the century during WWI. It was filmed beautifully in two locations: a remote area of India which looked like an early Madras, and Trinity College Cambridge in England. the-man-who-knew-infinity-0aDev Patel and Jeremy Irons partner up to prove mathematical equations in a style reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, but in this film, the major conflict is cultural discord. The director says that the film is actually about nurturing relationships. Layers of relational potential and missed opportunities plague this true story.  Here is a beautiful interview with the writer / director,  Matt Brown.960