Lion

Yesterday I saw the movie Lion. I had no idea why it is called Lion until that last minute.  What a story!  I wept like a baby.  I think the telling of this true account might have been better served if the lead role had been played by someone who looked something like the guy about whose experience the movie tells, but at least I could pretend Dev Patel looks like him….that is until the closing when pics of the real Saroo were shown. Dev Patel did a really fine job of learning an Aussie accent.  So what if no Aussies will agree with me?

Basically the story is of a 5 year old boy who wanders onto an empty train that then takes a long journey to Calcutta, well over a thousand kilometers away. He gets off the train into a strange place where people do not generally speak his language. They speak Bengali, not Hindi.  He eventually is sent to an orphanage and, being unable to name his mother as anything other than Mum, he is deemed to be fit for adoption and ends up with a very loving couple in Tasmania.  What special people they are! 

After the boy becomes a young man, he is haunted by the need to find his lost family. He is tortured by the thought that THEY have been tortured all these years by his absence.  He searches his childhood memories……and Google Earth.   Eventually he puts the pieces together and journeys back to India.  Sigh.   You can see the rest for yourself. 

I had recently seen Hidden Figures and was similarly moved, but not with the same intensity. Yet that is a fine movie also even if my cheeks weren’t dripping.