"I Went On The Show, Because I Thought She'd Be Watching."

ladies and gentlemen, I have just seen the greatest film of 2008, and one of the best movies i've ever seen in my whole life:

"SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE" from Danny Boyle, the director of "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later".

The movie is the story of Jamal Malik, a young "slumdog" (lowest, poorest class of citizen) from Mumbai, India. The movie is non-linear, starting in the present for brief periods of time and intercutting flashbacks from the past for long periods of time. Jamal is a contestant on India's version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and although he has never has had very little education he manages to have earned more money than anyone in the program's history. The police believe that he is cheating, and beat him mercilessly to find out if he was cheating.

But Jamal is not a cheater, and he has a unique way of getting the answers: he has a flawless photographic memory, and each question he is asked is a link to an important moment in his past. Because of this bit of information, a large portion of the film is in flashbacks to his life in India's slums, where he disovers a clue that is a question asked.

In his life, the only close family he has are his older brother Salim, who is antagonistic and rude and eventually gets involved in Mumbai's organized crime family; and a girl from the slums named Latika. Jamal is in love with Latika, and makes it his life goal to be with her as he believes that their destiny is to be together forever. When he discovers she moved, she moves there too. When he discovers she is trapped in child trafficking, he attempts to rescue her. When she rejects him, but at the same time he discovers she loves Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Jamal becomes a contestant just so he can somehow get to her, tracing back to what i said originally where he wins more money than anyone, but the stakes are raised when he doesn't know the answer to the last question.

This movie is downright BEAUTIFUL. When the characters suffer, you want to cry. When they achieve, you want to stand up in your seat and cheer for them. Another great thing about this movie is that the love story feels real. It doesn't at all feel like a steriotypical Hollywood romance, it feels like real and raw people who honestly love each other body and soul.

This movie absolutely, no doubt about it, gets my choice as the best movie of 2008 (it won the Critic's Choice award too). It beats "Iron Man". It beats "Burn After Reading". And yes, dare i say, it beats "The Dark Knight" as the best film of the year. It's a classic that will be in my top favorites until the day I die, and I can't wait to see it again, and again, and again.