look at me now

Slumdog now

Really, between the two, I'd much rather see Cidade de Deus than Slumdog if I'm going to watch a movie on slums. I don't think abject poverty (of the sort Americans don't understand and don't experience) has much of a "rags to riches" story of hope to tell most of the time. It's more likely to cause despair or resorting to desperation. Something like selling your now famous child for money. There are ways out of the cycle of being an under-caste member of society, but they always seem to end up being somewhere between luck and danger. Luck, like being picked to act in a major international film and getting assistance from a kindly director for you and your family. When you could have just been a faceless slum dog like millions of others.