‘The White Tiger’ grabs you and won’t let go
If “Slumdog Millionaire” is a fairy tale, “The White Tiger” is a darker, twisted version of that.
And a better movie.
The film, streaming Jan. 22 on Netflix, charts the rise of Balram (actor and musician Adarsh Gourav), born in poverty and acutely aware of how difficult it is to escape it.
“Don’t believe for a second there’s a million-rupee game show you can win to get out of it,” he says, a sly nod to the plot of “Slumdog Millionaire.”
But Balram is determined. Director Ramin Bahrani’s film, which he also wrote and based on Aravind Adiga’s novel, is so entertainingly made it’s easy to overlook the dark nature of the path Balram takes – and difficult to blame him, given the circumstances and the strength of Gourav’s performance.
‘My story gets much darker from here’
“My story gets much darker from here,” Balram warns us at one point. It’s a pretty amazing declaration, given that his story begins in a dark place.
And then stops. Balram asks the audience to forgive him for starting with such a bummer, and takes us back through his life. Bahrani uses a framing device to tell the story – Balram’s email to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao – who is coming to India to meet entrepreneurs, of which Balram is now one.
We learn this upfront. We know that somehow Balram rises. But how? And at what cost? This is a film about the great class divide. India once had scores of castes, Balram says. Now there are basically two: those with large bellies and those with small ones.
The number of people with big bellies is considerably smaller, but they wield all of the power. Much of the story takes place in 2007 in India, but that divide has only gotten wider, making the film feel contemporary and familiar.
Who is the ‘white tiger’?
Balram sees his way forward by becoming a driver for Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), the son of the unforgiving landlord whose cruel policies ensure that the poor in Balram’s village remain that way. Balram doesn’t know how to drive, but this is a small obstacle. He crams in lessons and lands the job – an illustration of his near-unbridled ambition.
Ashok studied in the U.S., where he met his wife, Pinky Madam (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). Ashok seems more open-minded and kind than his father and older brother (Vijay Maurya), who serves as their father’s enforcer.
Balram was born into a servant class. The goal, he figures, is to find the best master. He can’t conceive of being anything but a servant, and yet, he can. He’s smart and driven. When he was a child in school, after displaying a command of English, a teacher told him he was the rare white tiger; only one is born in a generation.
What makes Adarsh Gourav’s performance magnetic
The film is a fascinating struggle between Balram’s promise and capability and the generations of ingrained, unfeeling privilege that stacks the deck against him. He will find out, abruptly and heartbreakingly, the limits of loyalty – a lesson he learns all too well. “The White Tiger” doesn’t follow the typical work-hard-and-succeed narrative.
Balram works incredibly hard, both at his job and at making sure he succeeds at it, even if it means orchestrating the failure of competitors. It is a fascinating dynamic, and Gourav executes it flawlessly. He has to. If he weren’t so magnetic, so captivating in his performance, you’d barely be able to stomach watching him.
But he is. Gourav can move you with the sadness in his eyes one moment, then make you wince with his casual menace the next. In both cases, and everything in between, you can’t take your eyes off him.
Bahrani, as he does in outstanding films like “99 Homes” and “Goodbye Solo,” finds common ground between disparate kinds of people. In Gourav’s portrayal of Balram, he also seeks, and finds, common ground in the disparate natures of a single person. For the poor, Balram says, there are only two ways to the top – crime or politics. No one said they are mutually exclusive.