The White Tiger Review: Social Commentary With Real Teeth
The White Tiger Review: Social Commentary With Real Teeth
The White Tiger Review: Although set, very specifically, in India,
The White Tiger is an allegory that could take place anywhere, and that feels uncomfortably familiar.
The White Tiger Review: A still from the film. (courtesy priyankachopra)
Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao, Adarsh Gourav, Mahesh Manjrekar
Director: Ramin Bahrani
There's a sense of snarling menace implicit in
The White Tiger, a subversive, sharp-toothed dramedy of upward social mobility by writer-director Ramin Bahrani (
99 Homes), based on Aravind Adiga's best-selling 2008 novel, which won the Man Booker Prize. It's not just in the title, a metaphorical moniker for uniqueness slapped on the film's ambitious protagonist, a canny but impoverished low-caste Indian named Balram (Adarsh Gourav), as a child. It's there, lurking in every shadow of this dark rags-to-riches tale itself: a coiled threat to the traditional world order of haves and have-nots, just waiting to pounce.