Rushdie says 'Slumdog Millionaire' is ridiculous
LONDON: British-Indian author Salman Rushdie has attacked the plot of
multiple Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as a "patently
ridiculous conceit".
Rushdie wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the central
feature of the film - that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to
succeed on the Indian TV version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -
"beggars belief." "This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of
fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name," the author of
"The Satanic Verses" said in the article published Saturday.
Rushdie said the central weakness of the film - which won eight
Oscars - was that it was adapted from a book by Indian diplomat-novelist
Vikas Swarup called "Q&A" which is itself "a corny potboiler, with a
plot that defies belief." "It is a plot device faithfully preserved by
the film-makers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog
Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief," wrote Rushdie,
who was born in Mumbai.
Rushdie signed off a long lament about the quality of film
adaptations of books by saying: "We can only hope that the worst is
over, and that better movies, better musicals and better times lie
ahead."
The author last month marked the 20th anniversary of the Islamic
death sentence imposed on him by Iran following the publication of "The
Satanic Verses".
Monday, AFP |