Slumdog's inspiring story forces many to look at India's poor

Slumdog Millionaire is all the rage in Hollywood this season, but the film is also forcing people in India and America to take a hard look at real life in India's slums.

Slumdog is a rags-to-riches story about an 18-year-old orphan who competes on a popular Indian TV game show in an effort to break out of the slums of Mumbai and find his destiny. The film was a big winner at the Golden Globe Awards earlier this month and at the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday night, and it's considered a favorite at the Academy Awards next month. 

That's a big breakthrough for an Indian film with an Indian cast. Eighteen-year-old actor Dev Patel won the coveted best actor award Sunday night from the Screen Actors Guild for his portrayal of Slumdog's Jamal Malik. And the film itself won the award for best picture at the Golden Globes.

Although many observers credit the film for depicting rarely seen life of the slums of Mumbai, others complain that the film is either too realistic or not realistic enough. Al Jazeera's Matt McClure, for example, reports that "few will escape this grinding poverty" and accuses the film of overlooking that "harsh reality." Less than 20 percent of India's poor get an elementary school education, McClure reports.

Shireen Miller of Save The Children tells McClure that the kids in India's slums "don't need a Hollywood film." Instead, she says "we should be doing something to make sure they're not living in these conditions."

Meanwhile, some critics in India have complained that the film dwells too much on life in the slums and fault the film for painting an unflattering picture of the country to westerners.

Should one film bear the burden of representing so many different perspectives? And is it appropriate for a movie simply to inspire without wallowing in the negative? Slumdog actor Anil Kapoor believes it is appropriate. He insists that the film will inspire young people in India's slums and elsewhere. "If they have the determination and the passion to do whatever they want to do in life, they can make it," Kapoor says.