The White Tiger

The White Tiger

Director: Ramin Bahrani. Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra,

Adapted by the Man Booker Prize winner novel from 2008, this Oscar nominated film by Iraniana-American Ramin Bahrani is at its heart a rag-to-ritches story which turns to a trip to hell and then back again. It is also a gripping story about inequality, corruption, class war and contradictions of contemporary India seen through the incredibly expressive eyes of a driver working for a massively rich family.

There are similarities with Last year Oscar winner “Parasite” especially how it slowly turns something much sinister than one might think at the start and how it uses using crime and unexpected violence to expose the inequalities in modern India (in a similar way as “parasite” had done for South Korea).Adarsh Gourav is spectacularly good in the main role of Bahrani often doing so much with just a simple smile: he is sweet, naive, honest to start with, until rage and frustration born out of injustice will make him into something quite different (a white tiger, as the title suggests).

This is really not your typical Bollywood India film, nobody breaks out to dance (though somebody at some point does sing), there’s no love story and things are doing to turn pretty dark. Poverty is real, the inequalities are stark and no winning lottery will turn your life around (There’s even a very intentional poke at “Slumdog Millionaire”).

It is a slick, sharp, fast-paced satire, with an epic sweeping feel to it. I found utterly compelling and very entertaining.

On Netflix.