From the production team that brought us The King’s Speech comes Lion: the incredible true story of Saroo Brierley and his 25-year odyssey.
Precocious five-year-old Saroo Khan is always up for an adventure. Eager to help his older brother Guddu with any odd job that will provide their family with much-needed money, Saroo follows Guddu everywhere he goes. One night the two boys are separated on a train platform in their native Madhya Pradesh, and Saroo winds up nearly a thousand miles away in Calcutta.
Homeless in a strange city where he does not speak the language, Saroo gets by on his street smarts until he is taken in by a government orphanage. When an Australian couple adopts him, he is taken to live with them in Hobart, Tasmania. It is not until Saroo leaves that island as a young Australian man that he begins to wonder what became of his first home and the family he so adored. Ingeniously using satellite images from Google Earth, he finds a lead to follow up on. But the search for Saroo’s past threatens to overwhelm his present, and he finds himself further adrift than he ever imagined possible.
Adapting Brierley’s own book, A Long Way Home, screenwriter Luke Davies and first-time director Garth Davis infuse the story with quiet heartbreak. Newcomer Sunny Pawar lights up the screen as the young boy and Dev Patel (The Man Who Knew Infinity) delivers a deeply affecting performance as the adult Saroo. Nicole Kidman, David Wenham (Oranges and Sunshine), Rooney Mara (Carol, Her) and Tannishtha Chatterjee (Angry Indian Goddesses, Siddarth) round out Lion‘s all-star international cast, while Greig Fraser’s arresting photography conveys the overwhelming chaos and beauty of Saroo’s two worlds. This remarkable journey shows us how home transcends borders and family transcends blood.
“Once in a while, a movie comes along that is so touching and sincere, without a moment of false emotion or manipulative self-indulgence, that it established squatters’ rights and moves into your heart to stay.” (Rex Reed, New York Observer)
“A sober and yet profoundly stirring contemplation of family, roots, identity and home, which engrosses throughout the course of its two-hour running time.” (David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter)