LION ROARS ABOUT MISSING CHILDREN
Every year, according to a title at the end of Lion, some 80,000 children go astray from their homes in India—and more worldwide. One such child, five-year-old Saroo (played by Sonny Pawar), goes to a train station with his brother, but then his brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) goes off to work, leaving him sleeping at the station. When his brother does not return, Saroo searches on a train parked in the station that suddenly embarks on a 2-day, 1000-mile trip to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), with no intermediate stop for Saroo to get off. While wandering around the city, he is eventually rounded up to live in an orphanage, which in turn facilitates his adoption by loving Australian parents, Sue and John Brierly (played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham). But one day his separation from his brother and his Mom haunts him, so at the age of 30 (now played by Dev Patel) he uses computer capabilities to locate them and reunites with his mother Kamla (Priyanka Bose), though his brother died at that train station. There are many subplots in the very sentimental film, which is based on Saroo’s autobiography A Long Way Home. (Saroo mispronounced his birthname Sheru, which means “lion” in Hindi.) The film ends with an appeal to help missing children. MH