Goodbye Solo) approaches the material with a deceptively light touch, reeling you in with the promise of a pleasant and inspiring tale of a boy from a small village making it big, only to let the cynicism of the world around his protagonist slowly take hold and seep into him. But what makes
The White Tiger such a fascinating tale is that it takes a shattered view of everyone else for Balram to consider his own worth and the worth of others of his station, and to develop a desire to rise above what his class status dictates for him.
The White Tiger Review: Adarsh Gourav Is Brilliant. Yet, The Roar Of The Film Isn t Uniform
The White Tiger Review: Adarsh Gourav Is Brilliant. Yet, The Roar Of The Film Isn t Uniform
The White Tiger Review: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, in a supporting role, doesn t put a foot wrong. Rajkummar Rao s accent is too put-on to be effective.
The White Tiger Review: Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao in a still (courtesy gouravadarsh)
Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Rating: 3 stars (Out of 5)
Can one man s miraculous rags-to-riches story encapsulate the cumulative truth of India ? Balram Halwai, the protagonist of
The White Tiger Is a Complex Crime Drama with a Dazzling Performance at Its Center Time 1/22/2021 Stephanie Zacharek
Sometimes a great face is all you really need to set a movie spinning, and Ramin Bahrani’s
The White Tiger, adapted from Aravind Adiga’s 2008 novel, has one: Adarsh Gourav plays Balram, the antihero of this sometimes bitterly funny, sometimes wrenching crime drama. When we first meet him, he is a slick, self-styled entrepreneur in Bangalore, a city he calls “the Silicon Valley of India.” But this wily, ambitious Balram with his trendy clothes and neatly waxed mustache used to be a very different Balram, a kid from a small village who saw his father work himself into an early death, funneling every rupee he made to the boy’s controlling grandmother, a formidable figure he calls granny. (In this story, there’s no room for warm matriarchal stereotypes doling out unconditional love.)
Rating:
Consider the calibre of films that have been adapted from Booker or Man Booker Prize-winning novels: Schindler s List, The English Patient, The Remains Of The Day and Life Of Pi were all festooned with awards of their own, and two of them won Best Picture Oscars.
In truth, though, there have also been a few duds. I thought 2017 s The Sense Of An Ending, inspired by the Julian Barnes book, a terribly dreary affair.
With the new Netflix release The White Tiger, I m happy to say, the list burns bright once more.
Comparisons will doubtless be made with yet another Best Picture, Danny Boyle s Slumdog Millionaire (2008), at which the script makes a sly dig. But this is a cleverer, more complex and more disturbing tale