Running time: 125 minutes. Rated R (language, violence and sexual material). On Netflix.
Many memorable movies have been made about the struggles of India’s poorest citizens. Oscar winner “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Lion,” both starring Dev Patel, chronicled boys’ climbs from small ignored villages to greener pastures.
Using different styles and stories, both of those films grabbed our hearts.
“The White Tiger,” on the other hand, takes our heart, stomps on it and then maniacally laughs. The acidic satire, based on Aravind Adiga’s novel, gives the well-worn genre a rebel streak, and its wronged main character is more like the scheming family of “Parasite” than a doe-eyed kid trying to reckon with his hardscrabble past.
His name is Balram (Adarsh Gourav), a low-caste young man who lives with his grandmother and brother, and is saddled with a life of predetermined servitude. He explains, through reflective narration, how he escaped his down-and-out destiny to become a wealthy entrepreneur.
Shooting for a better gig than cleaning dirty restaurants, Balram learns to drive and is soon hired by Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) — the wealthy son of a landlord — and his girlfriend Pinky (Priyanka Chopra).
Suddenly, a guy who has never heard the word “computer” leaps from eating outside on the ground to spending his days in a luxury hotel, even though servants still have to sleep in makeshift shelters in the parking garage. His shimmering new life gives him the tools to jump ahead — and I’m not talking résumés and references. Balram gets by on good, old-fashioned street smarts and violence.
Clearly, “The White Tiger” is a much darker film than “Lion” or “Slumdog,” which emphasized humanity’s positives. Writer-director Ramin Bahrani’s movie is also, at the core, an eviscerating comedy.
“It’s an ancient and venerated custom of my people to start a story by praying to a higher power,” begins Balram early in the film. “So I, too, should start off by kissing some god’s foot.”
Much of the social critique is given to Chopra’s character, who was born in India and raised in New York. After Balram, the brassy woman from Queens — anathema to the chauvinistic local men — is the most intriguing spoke in the wheel. Arriving in Delhi, Pinky is at first appalled by the way servants are treated, but gradually, she becomes a beneficiary of the ugly system.
But the real find here is Gourav, who gives a pressure-cooker turn as Balram, a guy who can no longer smile and nod at his own oppression. He switches rapidly from sweet to deranged, gullible to Machiavellian, generous to bloodthirsty. This guy’s got more layers than spanakopita. So far, the 26-year-old actor has worked mainly in Indian films and TV shows, but hopefully “White Tiger” is the start of seeing a whole lot more of him stateside.