After various adventures intended to demonstrate how dangerous it is to be a homeless child in India, Saroo enters an orphanage, from which he is adopted by a couple in Tasmania. It is on one of these scavenging trips that Saroo becomes separated from his brother, falls asleep in an empty train carriage and is transported 1400 kilometres to Calcutta, where the local language is Bengali, not Hindi. Their mother, Kamla (Priyanka Bose), supports her family by breaking rocks in a quarry, while the boys supplement her income by stealing coal and scavenging coins from railway carriages. Saroo enjoys a close relationship with his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate). The most engaging part of the film is the first hour spent with five-year-old Saroo (played with amazing assurance by newcomer, Sunny Pawar), who lives with his family in a small village in Uttar Pradesh. Viewers shed tears of relief as they glance at their watches.ĭev Patel has been nominated for best supporting actor Oscar for Lion. When a story is built around a man's obsessive search for his real home we always know how it will end, even though it takes about two hours for the cathartic resolution to arrive. It's a happy weepie that makes a virtue of predictability. While I'm not enough of a snob to suggest this precludes him from making a great movie, Lion is a highly professional, uninspired piece of work. This is a first feature for Australian director Garth Davis, who has enjoyed a successful career in commercials. Middle-class audiences in America and Europe can indulge in a double whammy: feeling sympathy for the Indians and envy for the Tasmanians. There are two kinds of exotic in Lion – exotic India, all poverty and squalor and exotic Tasmania with its rugged scenery and sporty lifestyles.

Lion in hindi is called saroo