Hakuna Matata.

Let the bells ring out, everyone dance in the streets and someone steal me another TV from the betting shop down the road because Oscar Bait season is fully upon us now! YEEHAAAAA!

January couldn’t be a better time to get distracted with films which no-one will watch 6 months from now. With everything that’s happening in the world, we may as well rage against the hollywood machine as opposed to the political machine. For one, what’s happening in the real world is now less real than whatever hollywood could be producing. If Charlie Brooker’s 2016 Wipe was anything to go by, where they really struggled to get the show to be within an hour for broadcasting, I suspect they’re already writing 2017 Wipe and will struggle to keep the programme this time to under 4 hours.

But enough of that pesky reality talk, let’s get to looking at the current season of shiny shiny chasers in the form of Lion, a film due for release this Friday 20th Jan in the UK. Of course tis the season for true stories and we kick with a true story about a cheeky chap named Saroo (played by Sunny Pawar and later, the manly lion adult known as Dev Patel) , who lives a crap life in India but he’s happy. I think, I’m not really sure. He has a family, with a single mother a brother and a sister. One day, Saroo wanders off with his brother Guddu (Abhisek Bharate) to help him work, and in turn leaves his young sister alone in the house as their mum has gone to work. Why? Err……. let’s just bring that up later….

Saroo and Guddu get separated because Saroo falls asleep on a bench at the station and Guddu wanders off and is perfectly happy to leave his small brother alone in a train station.

What the f**k is wrong with everyone?

But it gets better as Saroo gets taken along by train to somewhere else and learns how much more sh*tty life can get as he goes from being lost to almost being trafficked for god knows what, to ending up in an orphanage. But no worries campers as he ends up randomly being flown to Australia to meet his new mum and dad, played by Nicole Kidman (with hilarious hair cut that the real mum apparently had) and David Wenham.

The Circle of meh.

Now grown up, The “Dev Patel” version of Saroo, who also has an adopted brother with mental issues who turns up randomly and never actually matters to the story, comes into view. He meets a sexy American woman (Rooney Mara) and proceeds to have sex with her and wander round for dinner parties. One such dinner party, the group of hip and happening people talk about Saroo being an orphan and then it comes. The kicker…. Has Saroo heard of this new thing called Google Earth?

Oh yeah, Saroo then forgets about getting on in life, quits everything and then just leaves his girlfriend to spend time to find his real family using Google Earth. The girlfriend / not girlfriend seems to suffer from “Danish Girl Syndrome” as she comes and goes a fair bit, they’re together then not and all the while Saroo is basically being an asshole, she’s being loving and understanding.

I repeat; What the f**k is wrong with everyone?

So yeah, eventually he finds where he’s from, via random clicks (err…..) and then of course, finds the family who is still alive. Everyone’s happy and then crying for about 30 minutes and then the film ends with footage of the real people involved and a charity message. Yep, a charity message folks, you just watched a 90 minute Oxfam advert.

So true story turf, that will win awards at some point for the crying bits. But how does it hold up as a piece of entertainment? All joking aside, there are some powerfully emotional scenes within this (as I confirmed with the man sitting next to me in the cinema was crying) and you can’t help but get swept up in the emotions where Saroo finally meets his real mum and sister after 20 odd years. Of course, it’s a really touching human moment and there are plenty more in the film. The depiction of life in India is rather harrowing and shocking, where basically unless you get a break, it’s just a hard existence.

However, the thing drags on. A lot. To the point where you are wandering when it will end. The whole film overall is actually depressing, despite the happy ending as it were. I know it’s part of the story, but with certain events within the story, instead of being shocked or saddened by what I saw, I had thoughts of “Why does everyone keep wandering off?”, “Who would ever want to live in India?” and “Why did Saroo waste his opportunity in Australia? Did he even have anything to really go back to after throwing in the towel to learn about Hotel Management?”

In the end, all interest was lost on my part. As a story, it’s actually quite touching that after all the pain and misery, something good did come out of it all. As a film, the acting’s competent, the pacing slow and as I keep on saying, it will win awards for the emotional scenes.

However….. I have no reason to want to watch it again, and honestly, I find it hard to recommend at best. Whereas last year’s Room as an example, I’ve only seen once and was blown away by, this didn’t. It’s not bad, it’s just long and drawn out.