This is what the second half of the movie explores, deep, meaningful themes that can’t be dismissed. Many adoptees struggle with the fear that the people who raised them will feel betrayed. In addition to this, the natural urge to seek out biological relatives can cause distress and guilt on the part of the adoptee, particularly in not wishing to harm the relationship with the adoptive parents. As someone who was not adopted, I can’t begin to understand the complexity of this kind of identity crisis, but it makes sense to me, especially when the children are of a different ethnic makeup to the adoptive parents. In doing some research for this review, I’ve discovered that in many cases adopted children go through periods of existential depression (and in some cases, this is a lifelong condition) and experience feelings of low self esteem, making it difficult to form strong emotional bonds with others. 20 years later, a period of angst creates within him an obsessive desire to be reunited with the family he lost, at the risk of losing those dear to him. Lion tells the true story – as true as any movie based on real events can be – of Saroo Brierly (played as an adult by Chappie’s Dev Patel, and as a child by Sunny Pawar), a five year old kid growing up in poverty in the city of Khandwa, India, his estrangement from his family which leads to his adoption by a couple in Tasmania, played here by Nicole Kidman in a fine performance, and David Wenham. Less interesting in comparison to what comes before, and I provide this caveat because the first half of the movie is rock solid – entertaining, compelling, and thoroughly engaging. In Lion, the result is a lot less interesting. In the case of Room, while the narrative changes, the second half is still mostly engaging. In Room, it’s the escape of Joy and Jack, in Lion, it’s the jump in time from 1986 to 2006. These movies generally have much the same structure, usually a radical change at the midpoint. It happens in movies too, mostly when the second half of a movie is not as strong as the first. The phrase goes back to something football (soccer, to my readers here in the colonies) pundits say when describing a game where the first half is dominated by one team, and the second half dominated by the other. I’ve described a couple of movies as being “of two halves” – Room, most recently.
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