By Florian Barnett-Trier, Badis Azouni, Kamaal Jhumra, and Emin Abasov (Y12)
Directed by Danny Boyle, made in 2008, Slumdog Millionaire is about a poor young man who was born in the slums of Mumbai, who happened to participate in “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and achieved unexpected success. The movie romanticizes poverty through an unrealistic plot, trying to portray the social inequalities that lead to a low quality of life.
Slumdog Millionaire is about Jamal Malik, who is the young man in the indian show. He and his brother, Salim, had an unstable and violent childhood. Their mother was killed during anti-muslim riots, leaving them as orphans. While living on the streets, they meet a girl called Latika, who becomes an emotional center of Jamal’s life. He falls in love with her instantly and therefore becomes the protagonist’s driving force in his life. During the questionnaire, everyone assumes that he must be cheating due to the fact that a slumdog is capable of answering the questions correctly. After the show, the main character gets arrested and interrogated. Then the film goes back through Jamal’s life memories, where each answer connects to a real experience he had growing up. The movie then follows Jamal trying to reconnect with Latika again, whilst Salim becomes involved with gangsters. Then, Jamal eventually has a low-level job, yet still remembers his childhood and all the pain he had to go through.
The movie also highlights the issue of child exploitation. One of the most disturbing parts is when Jamal, with his brother and Latika, falls into the hands of adults who pretend to care for homeless children, but actually use them for profit. Children are manipulated, abused, and even physically harmed in order to make them better at begging. In society, vulnerable children are often the first victims of criminal networks and an abusive system. This film forces the audience to confront the cruelty of what poverty can create and the ways in which children are denied basic human rights.
Slumdog Millionaire is more than a romantic drama. It is more of showing the world how poverty exposes people to danger, exploitation, and discrimination. The film shows that the success opportunity society allows people to have. Looking at Jamal’s story, the audience sees how inequality shapes lives from childhood onward. Ultimately, the movie shows that behind one extraordinary success story lies a much darker reality.
This film has several important connections to our La Chât community. A key theme of the film is how social division and prejudice negatively affect young people. In the movie, Jamal is constantly underestimated and even criminalized by the police and the game show host simply because of his background. They have a preconceived notion that someone from the slums is inherently uneducated and incapable, which pushes them to treat him like a criminal. At La Châtaigneraie, students are constantly interacting with peers from vastly different backgrounds. Because Ecolint is an international school, the community is encouraged to stay open-minded and avoid judging people based on their socioeconomic status or where they come from. By doing this, students learn to view each other as equals rather than relying on unfair societal stereotypes.
The movie also shows how vulnerable young people can be manipulated and exploited by authority figures. Throughout the story, Jamal, Salim, and Latika are taken in by adults who pretend to offer them shelter, but in reality, use them for profit and force them into a dangerous criminal underworld. This completely strips them of a normal childhood and forces them into desperate survival decisions. In contrast, Ecolint provides an environment where the community is encouraged to feel safe and think critically. Teachers at La Chat help shape our perspectives and career paths without deciding everything for us. This teaching approach gives students real autonomy and helps them build their own identities in a safe setting.
Ultimately, Slumdog Millionaire shows how extreme poverty shapes children’s lives. The scenes of Jamal and his brother struggling to survive on the streets are deeply unsettling. International schools like Ecolint were created to support human rights and peace through education. The film demonstrates the consequences of society’s failure to protect and educate its youth, which leads to the marginalization of its most vulnerable group.
This project helps us see how different movies reflect our school’s goals and connect to global issues, so we can think about ways to make a difference.