Dev Patel’s Film Lion'

Director: Garth Davis: Actors: Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Nicole Kidman, Priyanka Bose, David Wenham, Rooney Mara, Deepti Naval, Tannishtha Chatterjee

According MD: Among actors in the world, if there was ever a wrong person, at the right place, in the right time, it would have to be Dev Patel. Frankly, he lost me (and I'm sure many others) in the very second he first appeared on screen, with a clipped British accent, in Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' (2008). It seemed far more fantastical to place Dev as a Mumbai slum-dweller than to imagine a slumdog becoming a millionaire on a TV quiz-show.
Of course Danny Boyle knew what he was doing. Slumdog slammed it at the Oscars that year. Ever since, Dev's been the brown poster-boy in Hollywood, retaining his Brit twang, and bagging "Indian" roles that most locals would give their right arm for --Jaipur caretaker in the sleeper super-hit, 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel', and its sequel; as Tamil math genius Ramanujan in 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'.
Dev plays the protagonist Saroo in this film. But his part is not set in India. That bit is taken care of by the fabulous little boy, Sunny Pawar, who plays Saroo's child version. Spare a second, and look closely at this little Saroo, with thick hair, runny nose, and a thin film of the city's grime and dirt coated over his skin that is severely tanned from a life spent under the harsh sun. I say this because you have seen this faceless boy in absolutely every Indian town/city, except never noticed, or wondered, where he could be coming from, or where he's going.