1) The document analyzes the movie Slumdog Millionaire, focusing on the different life paths chosen by the two brothers, Jamal and Salim. 2) Jamal works an honest job while competing on the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, ultimately winning. In contrast, Salim joins a gangster's crew and is killed by a rival. 3) However, the film shows that their choices were shaped by their difficult experiences growing up in poverty and violence in the Mumbai slums. At the end, Salim redeems himself by helping Jamal and Latika escape the gangster.

1. Stephanie M. Delgado<br />13 December, 2010<br />English 3231<br />Section 111<br />Dr. Gonzalez <br />The choices of Jamal and Salim in the movie Slumdog Millionaire <br />The movie Slumdog Millionaire is one of the most heart-warming and inspirational stories in recent years. It takes place on Mumbai, India, where eighteen year old Jamal Salik is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. Jamal is one question away from winning the top prize of the show, but the host can’t understand how an uneducated young boy from a slum knows the answers to the difficult questions in the show, so he has Jamal arrested and interrogated after being convinced that he’s cheating. The rest of the movie employs flashbacks to narrate the turbulent story of Jamal, his brother Salim, and Latika (a girl from their slum). Although Jamal’s life wasn’t easy, his life experiences gave him the knowledge to answer the tough questions on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. <br />In the movie, Jamal and Salim choose two very different paths in their life. These paths lead to two opposing outcomes. Jamal ends up winning the Indian version of the show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, while Salim dies at the hands of his gangster boss’ employees. Nevertheless, to say that Salim is a bad person who made all the wrong choices, whereas Jamal is the typical good-doer hero of the movie is an oversimplification of their characters. To understand how they ended up in these different situations, we must first understand the experiences that shaped their lives. <br />Salim and Jamal are both orphans who lost their mother on an anti-Muslim attack on the slum where they lived. They didn’t have the opportunity to attend school for very long. In fact, Jamal only learned the names of two of the Three Musketeers while in school. He referred to Latika as “the third musketeer” (Aramis), he referred to himself as Athos, and his brother as Porthos. His ignorance of the identity of the third musketeer is important at the end of the movie, as that is the final question of the show Who wants to be a millionaire?. But even the reference on the movie to the Three Musketeers is significant in understanding the characters. Despite the fact that Jamal didn’t know much about the Three Musketeers asides from two of their names, the allusion to them gives the watcher of the movie an idea of the character’s personalities. <br />As young children, Jamal and Salik are left to fend off for themselves. They resort to stealing, begging, and even posing as tour guides at the Taj Mahal to survive. Later on, Salim kills the gangster Maman, who they had escaped from when they were children. He does this to rescue Latika and protect his brother and himself. This action offers him the opportunity to work with another gangster, Javed. Javed hires him to work for him after learning that Salim had killed his rival. Salim sees this job as the only opportunity he has to get out of poverty. <br />On the other hand, we have Jamal. He only resorted to criminal activity when he was a child to satisfy his basic necessities. As a young adult he makes an honest living working as a delivery boy in a call centre. Unlike Salim, he considers other options to get out of poverty. But we also have to consider how in the movie, Salim is portrayed as toughened by his experiences. Even though he retains love and loyalty for his brother, some of the things that he had to go through left a scar in him. <br />From the movie, we can see how two brothers with a similar background and upbringing, chose two different paths in their lives. Jamal ended up working in a call centre, while Jamal worked for a prominent gangster in Mumbai. Even though the choices Salim made hurt people and were misguided by his desire to have a better life, at the end of the movie he redeems himself. Salim sees the error of his ways, and helps Latika escape from Javed. He does this knowing that it will cost him his life, and in the end manages to kill Javed. He dies in a tub full of money, which I think is very ironic. I assume that he realized that all the money in the world couldn’t make him happy, so he decided to compensate for his wrong-doing by sacrificing himself to help Latika. With this action he gave a happy ending to his brother and his friend, Latika. <br />The movie Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of the tumultuous life of Jamal and his brother Salim. It narrates the story of Jamal’s rise from the slums to his win of the Indian version of the popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Using flashbacks, we see the love story develop between Jamal and Latika, and the choices made by the two brothers. Jamal opts for an honest living, while Salim decides to follow a life of crime. At the end of the movie, we do see a change of attitude in Salim when he decides to help Latika. Slumdog Millionaire is truly an inspiring movie that presents a side of India not shown very often, while also presenting an universal love story. <br />Bibliography BIBLIOGRAPHY Slumdog Millionaire. Dir. Danny Boyle. Perf. Dev Patel. 2008.<br />