Director/ Garth Davis (Feature film debut)
Stars/ Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham and Rooney Mara

The biggest film production to ever take place in Hobart, Australia, is also a story that many Tasmanian’s would be quite familiar with. And perhaps several others too. Adapted from the autobiography ‘A Long Way Home’ by Saroo Brierley, Saroo’s story once aired on the free to air TV program “60 minutes”. A cinematic retelling was always necessary for such an inspiring and emotional journey.

One afternoon, as a child in his homeland of Khandwa, India, 5 year old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) was lost after becoming separated from his family. After a few weeks of unsuccessful attempts at finding his Mother, Saroo is placed into an orphanage. Shortly after, Sue & John Brierley (Kidman & Wenham), a married couple who reside in Tasmania, adopt Saroo.

25 years later, Saroo (now played by Patel), using the assistance of Google, goes in search of his birth Mother.

Before you see LION, it doesn’t hurt to know that the first half of this picture chronicles some involving and important insights pertaining to Saroo’s early childhood in India. Australian-born director Garth Davis opts to detail these events, including the dangers of living on the streets Saroo encountered, rather than relying on flashbacks. Having spent this amount of time on these events, the second half of LION zips straight through other (some equally) important events that occur in Saroo’s childhood transition into Australia. As such, a number of relationships of significance to the story, all of which involve the lead character, are under-developed and reduce some of the emotional impact LION is very capable of. This is especially noticed during Saroo’s young adult days. Nonetheless, once the core of the story we’re all here to witness comes to the fore, LION is relentlessly powerful and extraordinarily moving.

 In his most challenging and important role since his breakthrough in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, Dev Patel (who spent 8 months preparing for this part) pours his heart and soul portraying the character that has deservedly earned him a Golden Globe nomination. And he absolutely nails the Aussie accent too!

3 ½ stars

Viewer Discretion/ PG (mild themes)

Trailer / LION

Moviedoc thanks Transmission Films and the Cinema Nova for the screening invite to this film.

Review by Moviedoc / “LIKE” on Facebook – Moviedoc

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