Review: "The White Tiger"

 

"The White Tiger" stands as something of a self-conscious counterpoint to "Slumdog Millionaire," the Oscar-winning drama set in India that told the story of the chasm between the prospering new elite and the tradition-bound culture mired in poverty and class divisions. Though thematically similar, they couldn't be further apart in tone.

In fact, there's even a moment where it takes a swipe at the earlier film, snidely saying your problems aren't going to be solved by a million-dollar game show. Snort.

Whereas "Slumdog" was hopeful and humanistic, this new piece from writer/director Ramin Bahrani, based on the book by Aravind Adiga, is a slow descent into, if not cynicism, then at least grim-eyed realism.

We identify with our propagandist, Balram, an ambitious young man from a squalid village who charms his way into being the driver for a wealthy family. And yet, over time, even as he morphs from bright-eyed striver into disillusioned businessman and palm-greaser, our understanding for why he does what he does never diminishes. 

If it's possible to make a movie where the main character loses in the audience's admiration but gains in our estimation, then this is it.

It's a revelatory performance by Adarsh Gourav, who should get as much notice in Hollywood as Dev Patel did. His Balram is utterly subservient to his masters -- a word he openly uses to address them -- and yet understands resentment in his bones. A bright child on the way to a scholarship, he was forced to leave school and break charcoal for a living after his father, a rickshaw cyclist, died of tuberculosis.

Bahrani employs the parable of the roosters who are kept in pens, watching as one after another of their fellows are beheaded and torn into pieces of meat, knowing their turn will come. This is likened to the lower caste members like Balram, instilled at birth with the understanding they must not rise up against their landlords and betters.

Only once in a great while does a "white tiger" come along, one who can break out of poverty and become a rich person with a fat belly. Balram is determined that he is to be one of these tigers.

The story starts with the ending, in which Balram is already a well-to-do entrepreneur of some sort, narrating his tale as an email to a Chinese consul who is coming to India to promote business between the nations. It almost gives the narrative a fable-like quality.

Balram convinces his strict grandmother to pay for driving lessons so he can become a driver to the family of The Stork (Mahesh Manjrekar), the landlord of their village who collects one-third of every rupee made. 

He fears the elder son, known as The Mongoose (Vijay Maurya), who cuffs him like an errant slave, but manages to worm his way into the service of the younger son, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), who is progressive after having lived in New York City, advocating for investments in technology rather than coal and graft of government officials.

(The story is set in the early Aughts, before smartphones and apps were ubiquitous.)

Balram is thrilled to move to the bright lights of New Delhi with Ashok and his similarly minded wife, Pinky (Priyanka Chopra), even if it means sleeping in the garage of their high-rise luxury condo building. 

Pinky and Ashok are emblematic of the new Indian generation, wishing for a more egalitarian system but unwilling to give up any of their inherited luxury to make it happen. Like Balram, we're charmed by them but come to see they're much like Ashok's brother and father, who are at least open about keeping their thumb on the poor.

Things go on, with Balram genuinely happy to be of the most service to his employers. Until a terrible deed occurs, and his faith in a flawed but reliable system is shattered.

Is "The White Tiger" a depressing movie? I don't think so. It takes a young man who is trod upon by virtually everyone in his life and evolves him into an anti-hero eager to turn the tables. 

It's a harsh but penetrating look at how people in Indian, or any, culture line themselves up into predetermined strata they're not supposed to try break out of. Even when someone does so in a less than moral way, it's still an audacious and compelling journey.

 

Review: "99 Homes"

“99 Homes” is an earnest little drama that focuses on the foreclosure craze during the Great Recession. It shows how the will to survive can be gradually bended into a willingness to exploit the tragedies of others for personal gain. It’s a deliberately discomfiting portrait of how the line between victim and victimizer can easily blur.

Andrew Garfield is solid and empathetic as Dennis Nash, the true-blue-collar guy who gets evicted from his house, then goes to work for the real estate mogul who threw him out, eventually morphing into his right-hand lackey and reflection.

But Michael Shannon utterly steals the show as his boss, Rick Carver -- a conniving, contemptible yet surprisingly human figure.

Rick’s a cannibal who feels compelled to justify his actions even as he’s employing his teeth to strip the bones. He’s part Donald Trump, dividing the world into admirable winners and wretched losers; part pathetic Willy Loman, so fearful of a fall from grace that he invites it; and part Blake, Alec Baldwin’s wolfen character from “Glengarry Glen Ross,” slavering for his prey.

This is a tiny picture that I hope Oscar voters will remember when it comes time for voting on nominations. Shannon assuredly deserves a spot on the supporting actors’ list.

The story is set circa 2010 in Orlando, Fla. -- my own hometown. I can remember people back home talking about seeing at least two foreclosure signs on every block, whether houses were in the $70,000s or the $700,000s. Places like O-Town and Phoenix, Ariz., were the hot spots for the real estate bubble, with overheated prices producing the most precipitous drops when the bottom fell out.

Dennis is a construction guy, single dad, who lives with his son, Connor (Noah Lomax), and mom (Laura Dern) in a low-roofed bungalow -- the sort of crowded, low-cost housing that fueled Florida’s population boom in the 1950s and ’60s. Work’s been scanty since the real estate bubble popped, so when they get behind on their mortgage payments the courts are quick to whip out of the foreclosure card.

In a harrowing scene, Dennis and his brood are summarily thrown out of the family dwelling, their stuff piled up on the lawn by riff-raff workers, with rent-a-cops warning them of a trip to jail if they don’t comply. Rick is calling the shots, though he pretends to be just the guy with the clipboard carrying out orders. The energy is real and nervy, with everyone resorting to that sort of false politeness – “Yes, sir,” “No, ma’am,” – when they’d really like to take a swing at each other.

They pack up their stuff to a rundown motel, which houses a thriving community of evictees, all convinced they’ll move back into their own home any day now. Dennis catches a break when he stumbles upon Rick and is offered 50 bucks to help out with a vacant property that has been befouled. He possesses enough self-worth left to haggle the nasty job up to two-fifty, and Rick recognizes a hunger he can harness.

“Don’t get emotional about real estate,” Rick intones. “They’re boxes.”

Soon enough, Dennis himself is the one holding the clipboard, running his own crews, talking people into easing their keys into his hand, waving in the police to strong-arm it when required. Rick shows him how to work the grayish angles between private commerce and government subsidy, snagging whopping checks from Fannie Mae by covertly shuffling around appliances and AC’s.

(Air conditioning, for those not in the know, is practically a religion in the Sunshine State, and all must tithe.)

Written (along with Amir Naderi) and directed by Ramin Bahrani, “99 Homes” gets a bit fat in the second half, as the plot plays out its preordained contretemps between diabolical mentor and soul-searching mentee. But it manages to powerfully illustrate the human toll of the foreclose-and-flip game, just as we’ve started to forget the shenanigans and, thereby, open the door to them again.