P.as a result of energetic, impatient energy and yet a remarkable subconscious, Ramin Bahrani’s version of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker Prize-winning novel is one of the most successful literary adaptations of the years. finally. A story of a poor but wily driver who slips out of the cage created by caste and servicing to become a success story in modern India is not narrow at all. It shouldn’t be: it’s a bloody attack on a tight system designed to keep the privileges in their high place and the poor on the streets far below. While heavily narrated, the film’s scathing cinematography gives the characters a texture and a satisfying depth to the characters.
The narrator is Balram (Adarsh Gourav, an excellent in a slippery, difficult role); he’s smart and ambitious, but he plans to work on his family’s tea center. Seeing an opportunity, he learns to drive, masters the level that the upper classes expect from their servants, and introduces driving work to Ashok (Rajkummar Rao).
Balram pays full allegiance to his new leader, Urbane, who was educated in the USA. But loyalty cuts both ways. When employers take advantage of Balram, his sad smile subsides, and the value of a generation of anger is finally suppressed. Compared to accepting the early Bahrani films (Cart Push Man; Chop Shop), this is harder, more sinewy. But we don’t have to warm up to the characters who are enthralled by this compelling class parable.
Watch the trailer for The White Tiger.