New Delhi - Slumdog Millionaire, a film set in the city Mumbai, opened in theatres across India Friday amid jubilation amongst the country's film fraternity after the movie received 10 Oscar nominations. The film that has already won four Golden Globes hit the screens in its English and Hindi versions after its premiere in Mumbai Thursday night which was attended by top Bollywood film stars.
Slumdog Millionaire, which has received rave reviews as well as criticism for glamourizing poverty, is based on Q and A, a book by Indian diplomat and writer Vikas Swarup.
Directed by British film-maker Danny Boyle, it tells the story of an orphan from Mumbai's slums who makes it to the final of an Indian game show.
Although the film was not running to packed houses on Friday, theatre owners expected that the movie will draw bigger crowds by the weekend.
"We expect full houses on the weekend. People are flocking to see the movie after the Oscar nominations," said Mohit Bhargava, a theatre-owner in Bangalore.
But some young Mumbai-kers who saw the film Friday were disappointed.
"It is true that the film shows the reality, but it only highlights the negative aspects of Mumbai," a college student told the NDTV television network.
Slumdog Millionaire started a debate in India after some news channels and film critics said the film hyped poverty and dubbed it "poverty porn."
"Squalor never appeared more designed than it does in Slumdog Millionaire ... This over-hyped and disappointing film that insults Mumbai, culminates with a Bollywood-styled item song on a railway platform," film critic Subhash Jha wrote.
But non-governmental organizations said the film does not glamourize poverty and was a reflection of the realities challenging millions of Indian children.
"In cities across India, children work in terrible conditions for a pittance, are subject to violence and abuse or captured by organized crime rackets who make them beg for money on the streets," Shirin Vakil Miller, the India director of the NGO Save the Children, told IANS news agency.
"It is indeed good that a movie has been made that does not glamorize poverty. We hope that with Slumdog Millionaire's nominations, the world will acknowledge the cold reality of 120 million children living in poverty in India and work with us to tackle the injustice," she said.
Slumdog Millionaire has won nominations in categories such as best adapted screenplay, best movie or best director for the Academy Awards, which will be given away on February 22. The film's music director AR Rahman has become the first Indian to get three Oscar nominations.
The film which was released in the United States in December 2008 and in Britain early January has already raked in 50 million dollars at the box office.
