Slumdog Millionaire is a wonderful film set in Mumbai, India about a desperately poor boy, his brother and a young girl he befriends. The film switches between him answering questions on the Indian version of "Who wants to be a millionaire?" TV show and responding to interrogation about how he knew or guessed the answers by a initially brutal police officer. You see, because he is an orphan from Mombai's prodigious and brutal slums, no one believes that he could know the answers to the questions without somehow cheating. This film shows Mumbai in all its horrific, brutal and impoverished glory contrasted with the money-focused and upwardly mobile middle and upper classes. When we first see Jamal he is on the TV show answering questions emceed by an arrogant and mean host. The host makes fun of the young man because he is a "slumdog" who is now a mere tea wallah at one of Mumbai's ubiquitous call centres. However he answers each question correctly and as he does so, the prize money grow exponentially and the questions get harder. Soon the entire nation's poor are following the show from store window and tea shop TVs and cheering for him. Jamal's explanations take us back to his early childhood with his brother and mother in extreme poverty, to when his mother is killed when washing clothes near the train station, to how he knows the answer to "what American statesman is on a US $100 bill?", to why he knows who India's famous poet was who wrote a famous poem, to the young orphan girl whom he befriends and names their third musketeer (along with his older brother) from the book he read in school, and so on. Each new TV show question brings an an explanatory episode from his mostly horrific, but always a struggle for love, joy, and life where he learned unexpected knowledge. There is so much poverty and savagery in this film but it is mostly overcome by the heart, soul and determination of Jamal to find his love, survive, better himself and to try to find the joy in any every little thing. An honest portrayal of the worst slum life in India but the best of a human soul. Don't miss this one!