Lion tells Saroo Brierley’s story with respect and tenderness

WHEN Saroo was five, he fell asleep on a train and ended up lost. 30 years later, his incredible tale is a new movie starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman.

REVIEW

ANYONE who’s read or listened to Saroo Brierley’s extraordinary true story since it first came to light in 2012 has been blown away by his tale.

Saroo was born in 1981 in India to a poor mum with four kids. When he was five years old, he went with his older brother Guddu to a train station one night to scrounge for work. Tired, he falls asleep on a bench on the train platform. Guddu tells him to stay put until he comes back.

When Saroo wakes up a little later, the station is empty and his brother is nowhere to be seen. Groggy with sleep, he sees a train next to the platform and climbs aboard, looking for Guddu. He promptly falls asleep and wakes up much later as the train is speeding along, bound for Kolkata, 1600 kilometres from home.

Not knowing where home was, let alone how to get back there, Saroo is eventually adopted by a Tasmanian family and grows up as a middle-class Australian, fond of sailing and cricket. By his late 20s, Saroo sets out to find his birth family using nothing but faint memories and Google Earth, scouring satellite and aerial images for something familiar. His yearning to find a connection to his past consumes him.

Staring off into the distance always means one thing: Something important is happening.

Since he told his story to the BBC almost five years ago, Brierley has done numerous interviews and written a book about his experiences, the latter of which Australian writer Luke Davies (Candy) used for Lion’s screenplay.

The Australian-American film, starring Dev Patel as adult Saroo and Nicole Kidman as his adopted mother Sue Brierley, is a respectful and tender portrayal of that story.

Lion isn’t particularly cinematically groundbreaking, it can be melodramatic at times and its pacing in the second half is a little off. But the source material is so rich that it’s easy to forgive those small flaws when the film treats its characters with such empathy.

The most compelling part of the film comes early. The first 45 minutes or so is spent in India following young Saroo, establishing his family life, his relationship with his brother and those weeks on the streets after he is lost. Mumbai native Sunny Pawar, the young actor who plays Saroo at five is a joy to watch. His big, expressive eyes, whether he’s smiling or scared, is like a magnet — you can’t look away. He is incredibly naturally charismatic.

Look at those eyes! How do you not fall in love with this kid?

A breakout star, Pawar’s performance is an eye-opener, especially when you find out that he only speaks Hindi and director Garth Davies had to develop a kind of sign language to communicate during filming.

The scenes in India with young Saroo carry the rest of the film because they so convincingly set up the strong connection to his life there — rendering your investment in his story as absolute.

But be prepared to have tears streaming down your face for the last 10 minutes of the film — those scenes are definitely emotionally manipulative with its sweeping music and overpouring of sentiment on screen, each word and image chosen to elicit a strong response. But you won’t care because by then Lion will have earnt your cathartic weeping. Just bring the tissues, you know you’ll need them.

Rating: 3.5/5

Lion is in cinemas from Thursday January 19.

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A toast to using my real accent.