Priyanka Chopra Jonas admits her new film, The White Tiger, will make viewers feel uncomfortable. But it s also the reason why she felt the story - set in India and about the rise of a poor villager named Balram, who becomes a successful entrepreneur - was one that needed to be told.
As the 38-year-old suggests, We ve become so desensitised to the life that a huge population of the world (is living) without any options or choices . Their birthright dictates their future. Coming from a family that has given me options and given me an ability to have a voice in my own life, it really made me uncomfortable, Balram s journey, and made me root for him - and that s what I felt when I read the book, says the India-born actress, who married musician Nick Jonas in 2018.
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(From left) Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra and Adarsh Gourav in the riveting The White Tiger. PHOTO: NETFLIX
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Currently showing on Netflix, this grim film adaptation of Aravind Adiga s bestselling, Man Booker Prize-winning 2008 novel of the same name may end with the anti-hero finally finding the light at the end of his tunnel, but the permeating darkness that keeps getting brought up is something one cannot easily forget or shake off.
Cunning and ambitious Balram (Adarsh Gourav) narrates his darkly humorous rise from poor villager and obedient servant to successful entrepreneur and his own master in modern India.
The Help or Roma? Or does it have a new kick?
In 2008, Indian/Australian author Aravind Adiga wrote his debut novel
The White Tiger, and its thoughtful examination of India’s caste system was rewarded with a prestigious Man Booker Prize. The book’s protagonist is a scrappy lower-class man trying to get ahead in life and hemmed in by societal norms. Though that premise is far from the Adiga’s personal experience as a Columbia and Oxford educated journalist/writer, the novelist manages to grasp the culture, psyche and ambition of his central character who’s a bit like an ambitious pauper from a Dickens tale.
The White Tiger, a crime-tinged rags-to-riches parable, is director Ramin Bahrani’s response to Slumdog Millionaire The White Tiger is lively, is lively, but what renders it unconvincing is that the characters aren’t trapped by prescribed social roles so much as by the programmatic design of the narrative.
According to Balram, a wealthy young Bangalore businessman, “the Indian entrepreneur” must be a combination of opposites: “straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere.” He explains this in a letter to the Chinese prime minister that doubles as voice-over narration for The White Tiger, Ramin Bahrani’s restless new film, which is itself a blend of disparate elements. Adapted from Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize-winning novel, the movie is part satire and part melodrama, a crime-tinged rags-to-riches parable that uses the story of Balram’s improbable rise to indict the iniquities of the society that created h
The White Tiger Review: Adarsh Gourav roars like wildcat in this rags-to-riches tale
Director Ramin Bahrani s The White Tiger is an answer to Slumdog Millionaire in a grittier way. Netflix The White Tiger
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Where to Watch: Netflix The White Tiger Story:
The ambitious driver (Adarsh Gourav) for a rich Indian family uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and become an entrepreneur. Based on the bestselling novel by Aravind Adiga of the same name. The White Tiger Review:
If you think this rags-to-riches story will remind you of
Slumdog Millionaire, then Balram (Adarsh Gourav) shuts it down in the first few minutes of the film. The leading actor is also the narrator of the film and he is heard saying, Don t believe for a second there s a million-rupee game show you can win to get out of it.