By Christoph Russi ’17

Garth Davis’ “Lion” is the true story of an impoverished Indian child who is separated from his family far from home, survives as an orphan in the streets of Calcutta and is eventually adopted by a supportive and loving Australian couple. He is raised in their household and after reaching adulthood, discovers that he must find his birth family in order to confront his issues with identity. The story is a relatively straightforward treatise on the nature of family and belonging, and the protagonist is an interesting and well-executed character study of a person whose identity is split between two polar opposite worlds—the impoverished, illiterate young boy lost in the streets, and the wealthy, educated life of an upper class first world child.

About two-thirds through the film, I found myself completely disenchanted. While there are certainly some very well-crafted scenes in “Lion,” there are moments and sequences that feel bloated. Moments in which the director tries so hard to fill the space with an emotional reaction by turning up the music and making every other shot a close-up instead of just letting a simple scene be a simple scene.

Towards the end of the  main character’s journey, some scenes became obnoxiously repetitive. A good example of this was while the protagonist was desperately scrolling through Indian towns on Google Earth to find his birth family. I counted nearly twenty separate shots following the mouse on his computer. Those kinds of sequences break an audience’s immersion like nothing else, and make it difficult for me to recommend “Lion” to people who don’t enjoy watching films that feel as though they could’ve been thirty minutes shorter.

As Garth Davis’ first feature-length film, “Lion” is a terrific story with important things to say, but ultimately disenchanted me with mistakes that a more veteran director would know to avoid.