Losing a child in a public place, such as shopping mall, supermarket, park, etc., is always agonizing and probably the nightmare of any parent. Imagine losing a child in India! This is the story that Lion tells us, with a lot of sensitivity and intensity at the same time.

Saroo (the excellent Sunny Pawar) is five years old and follows his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) everywhere he goes. Both are from a poor family and live in a rural area in India. One day though, the two brothers are at a train station and Guddu needs to go somewhere else. It is then that he commits one of the biggest mistakes adults can make: he asks Saroo to wait for him sitting there. The boy, of course, cannot stand his curiosity and gets on a freight train. He falls asleep and when he wakes up he is practically in Calcutta, 1,500 miles away!

Watching Saroo being lost is a test of endurance for any viewer. It is impossible not to be completely tense and anxious to see him face the greatest adversities and find people with bad intentions. When finally Saroo is adopted by an Australian couple, the audience can breathe a little more relieved. More than 20 years later, however, Saroo (played at this stage by Dev Patel, nominated for an Oscar for Supporting Actor) begins to remember his past and is determined to find out more about his own origin.

It is in this second part of the film that we can see more of the relation among Saroo with his parents and his brother (another boy who also was brought from India a year after him). Saroo is responsible and successful, but ends up being consumed by the desire to find his biological family and isolates himself from everyone, especially his girlfriend (Rooney Mara) and his mother (Nicole Kidman, an Oscar nominee for the Supporting Actress).

The Oscar-nominated score by Dustin O’Halloran and Volker Bertelmann is subtle, but it manages to convey all the feelings that the film proposes to the public.

The cast is perfect and Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman deserve their nominations. Most likely Nicole Kidman will lose to Viola Davis, from Fences, but Dev Patel has a chance to win (although Mahershala Ali is the favorite to win for Moonlight). Too bad that little Sunny Pawar has not been nominated, but he sure will have the recognition of the whole public, because his performance is spectacular.

Adapted from the book A Long Way Home, written by the real Saroo Brierley, and directed by Garth Davis, Lion is a beautiful film that reminds us of the importance of our origins as well as the strength of the love that one has for family. It is also a great example of how adopting children can save them from a very cruel fate.

Deservedly nominated for 6 categories at the Oscars, including Best Picture, Lion is a film that will inevitably touch all viewers in the best possible way!

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Review: La La Land (2016) Review: Fences (2016) Review: Arrival (2016) Review: Manchester by the Sea (2016)

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