Lion is an Australian cinematic masterpiece, unlike any other movie. It isn’t just a story about family, perseverance, and hardship, it is also about a young child’s resilience.
Lion cemented for us, how much strength and intelligence a five-year-old child can inhabit. Young Saroo fell asleep on a bench and woke up hours later on a moving train. We were astounded to find out at the end of the film that this was a true story and that he was not in fact (like we thought) a fictional character.
Exhausted and starving, he tried to get help in the overcrowded lines of people at the train station, who only pushed him away, even the person behind the information desk didn’t bother to help and just claimed to not understand him – in the film he only speaks Hindi. This highlighted the ever powerful importance of nurturing children, which sometimes can be a struggle in the disconnected nature that the world and today’s culture holds at times.
Luckily, after this ordeal, it was just
fortunate that a gentleman in a café saw Saroo outside, mimicking him eating his lunch and prompting him to get in contact with the police and an orphanage.
The man helps Saroo and he gets invited to live in Australia after being adopted by a couple from Tasmania. However, if that gentleman in the café hadn’t noticed him, none of this may have happened. It took one kind soul after weeks of starvation and dodging people with bad intentions to save him.
This is why we think this movie is so fabulous! The film is a fine example of how just one small good deed can relinquish a young child’s life.
Saroo as an adult is portrayed by British actor Dev Patel, well-known for his role in Slumdog Millionaire, breathing an earnest and soulful persona into the character. Garnering his heartfelt performance, we weren’t surprised to see him take out the BAFTA Award Win for best supporting actor in Lion.
