I loathed Slumdog

I think I might be the only human being on the planet who didn't like Slumdog Millionaire.

It's not that I didn't like it; I hated it. I despised it. I was revolted by it.

Let's leave aside the red herring of the marketing campaign which billed it as a feel-good film, and even - heaven forbid - a comedy. It's not the film makers' fault, and I took the film on its own terms.

What annoyed and repelled me was the almost pornographic wallowing in violence and moral squalor on  which the film is built. The camera doesn't just show the violence; it embraces it as if it is a necessary precondition for the main character's love story. And the flashback-based plot is so cheaply manipulative as to be worthy of Leni Reisenthal. We are voyeurs, drawn in by the director, Danny Boyle, to watch the digsusting violence in the full knowledge that everything is going to turn out wonderfully for the main character and his love interest, as if the redemptive power of love doesn't just redeem the violence and squalor, it somehow makes it necessary.