Marcel Winatschek

Slumdog Millionaire

There’s this moment in the trailer where the music just takes over and you know you’re watching something that matters. It’s Slumdog Millionaire, set in Mumbai, about two brothers—Jamal and Salim—who grow up on the same brutal streets and become entirely different people. Jamal gets on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, fighting through the questions one by one, trying to get back to Latika, this girl he lost somewhere along the way.

It plays like a fairy tale, but it’s grounded in real streets and real struggle. What actually hooked me was the trailer itself, and especially the music underneath. The soundtrack has this aliveness that just made me want to watch immediately.

This was the kind of film that swept everything for a minute, and I understood why once I actually saw it. There’s genuine affection for these characters, for this world. You go in prepared for the hype to disappoint you and it just doesn’t.