Like in ‘99 Homes’, Ramin Bahrani directs with an eye on narrative propulsion rather than subtlety – but the film is compulsively watchable. And Adarsh Gourav is a star.
Spoilers ahead…
The White Tiger is based on a book (Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker-winner) so let’s begin with the literariness of the protagonist’s language. He’s called Balram (he’s played as an adult by Adarsh Gourav), and he hails from Laxmangarh, which could be another name for Anyvillage, India. Of his family cramped in a single room, he says they slept with legs twisted over each other so as to resemble one creature, a millipede. Of the caste system (which he equates with class), he says, “These days there are only two castes: people with big bellies and people with small bellies.” Of his strange countrymen, he says, “Open up our brown skulls and look inside with a penlight: you will find all these ideas half-formed, half-correct…” (Translate it to Hindi, and it becomes a smashing Salim-Javed line!) Even the names of a few characters sound literary, Rushdie-esque: The Stork, or The Great Socialist.
But only Balram speaks this way. Rather, he writes this way. All of what he says is contained in a letter addressed to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, who is visiting India. The director, Ramin Bahrani, has moved far away from the indie auteur who burst on the scene with fly-on-the-wall features like Man Push Cart and Chop Shop. He’s now a more flamboyant filmmaker, as we saw in his last theatrical feature, 99 Homes. (Like White Tiger, it’s a social-realist melodrama that pairs a have with a have-not.) Early on, we get a shot that takes in Balram meditating in a room with flamingo-themed wallpaper, and slowly, the camera zooms in so close to its subject that his face – slightly altered by perspective – fills the frame like a grotesque mask. But when it comes to Balram’s letter, Bahrani doesn’t replace it with a “cinematic” equivalent. He (wisely, I think) lets it remain the ironic distancing device it is: it alerts us that Balram is (at least partially) putting on an act with his carefully constructed writing. The earnest (and sometimes strained) literariness is his “I have arrived” statement.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Aman Basha
January 26, 2021
The BR strikes on Republic Day with a brilliant review.
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Madan
January 26, 2021
“He mocks everything, including our gods.” – Careful, you don’t wanna get this film banned from Netflix.
The current fracas over ‘offending sentiments’ reminds me of a little incident back in 2013 or so. Sanjay Dutt was going to go to jail. Huge crowds had gathered in Mumbai to see him off. I quipped, “Uska ganesh visarjan ho gaya hai”. It was what I thought was a very Mumbai joke. But my manager, also a born and bred Mumbaiite said, “Don’t insult Ganesha.” I didn’t bother explaining to him that I wasn’t insulting Ganesha but the idiots who idolized this criminal even after, well, everything.
I am really looking forward to watching this film. I loved the book back in the day and suggested it as well as Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City to my American born cousin (also an incorrigible bookworm) to get an insight into ‘real’ India. Often, when this thing about real India is brought up, especially to criticize a film that’s all about posh Indians, you get the “are we not real Indians” backlash. But this book really underlines the gulf between the small, privileged minority of upper and middle class Indians and the sea of the ‘left behind’ if they can be called that when they are the majority. If development and prosperity have eluded the majority, are they really the left behind or…?
The book is written in a non-posh and everyday Indian English but is profound. Chetan Bhagat OTOH always wrote for the college students, young adults, yuppies etc. His sleight of hand was to use this desi English as a populist tool so that he could conveniently diss anybody criticizing his writing as snobbish. But, Bhagatji, how many Indians do you think get into IIT or would need to read a book that’s all about what not to do at the IITs? He entertained the upper-middle class while pretending to cater to the LCD. At least initially. I haven’t dared to read his later books but have heard that Three Mistakes was well written?
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krishikari
January 26, 2021
Brilliant! I was waiting for your review of this film and it is a really interesting take, full of great insights, especially the Ramu kaku section and the ABCD observation. I was hoping you would do a Parasite comparision too, but why is it better? Wait, which one is better?
If this was an Indian production with an Indian director, who should have done it? I always thought after reading the book, that Anurag Kashyap would have been the obvious choice, but he does have the UC gaze.
Okay now I’ll go watch the film.
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Madan
January 26, 2021
Watched it. I don’t know if it’s because of how much Hindi cinema has evolved or because the director intentionally went for the tone of our own indie films but this didn’t feel like a foreigner making a film about India (Slumdog had a bit of explaining India for outsiders going on). It was quite authentic and worked better for it. It sags for a while after Pinky leaves Ashok but otherwise mostly brought the book to life.
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krishikari
January 27, 2021
Long rambling comment warning!
What an amazing film, so many moments, especially that scene after the betrayal with the overhead view of Balram breaking down in the tall grass near a golf course. (It should have been that formula one racecourse they built on land stolen from farmers.) Adarsh Gaurav gives a really astounding performance.
I agree with Madan, it does have a very authentic look for a non-Indian director. Apparently he and the author of the novel are old friends or something. The novel itself was astounding and there is a long rambling interview where the author, who is an NRI really, talks about it as a thought experiment on why the poor are not more violent in India. We have the Talwar movie about this type of true crime, my college roommate’s mother was murdered by their driver in Delhi, we all hear of such murders but servants killing their masters are the exception rather than the rule. Adiga uses the rooster coop metaphor to explain the phenomenon.
I have read some complaints about the reduction of caste to class in this film but they talk about it a lot! That conversation in the car about Halwaii caste was pretty direct and expositional, (for the benefit of a foreign viewer or even privileged caste denying Indian viewers) like these guys don’t have the exact stratification of their society down.
A few years ago, I would have thought the portrayal of the father and elder brother of Ashok were a bit too evil, (where’s the nuance, haha) but I think I’ve woken up to how bad it still is.
Loved the bad granny too.
This film does not retread any tropes. It stays faithful to the source novel and the distinct narrative voice of Balram but the film does a better job of showing his consciousness changing. Is he a rare and mutant animal or the voice of India rising? The tone of voice could be Gaitonde in Sacred Games but instead of poor boy predictably becoming a gangster he becomes an entrepreneur. A socially conscious one!
Right now we are witnessing the biggest farmers protest, they too know they are being sold out. The ruling class uses violence to suppress them and say they should remain non violent.
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Aman Basha
January 27, 2021
@krishikari: Great comment, but I’d disagree with the final lines; the farmers protest is based out of only two states, which do have valid concerns but the overall benefit outweighs any negatives. The laws do give an opportunity for the poor to escape the rooster coop.
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Aman Basha
January 27, 2021
Talking about the White Tiger of a generation, we might be seeing it decimate Hedge Funds soon in NYSE. A bunch of users on Reddit and an app called “Robinhood” in war against the bulls of Wall Street. I’m rooting for one side hugely here, seems like the comeuppance for 2008 is here in 2021.
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Madan
January 27, 2021
krishikari: Indeed, I think frankly the complaints of caste blindness come from those who are uncomfortable with the narrative of the film (and the book) and therefore want to bring it down. It was funny to see Anna Vetticad react like Mumbai yuppies and boomer uncles foaming at the mouth when Slumdog let everybody get a grand view of Dharavi and sundry slums in Mumbai. She was complaining that the location where they showed the homeless sleeping on pavements is a high security zone and couldn’t possibly happen there. Lady, that scene happens at 3 in the night and besides, not like Delhi is clean devoid of homeless anyway. So showing them at a somewhat different spot doesn’t make it somehow inauthentic. And then she proceeds to disingenuously repeat the caste blind claim when indeed the film makes his caste clear and shows him being discriminated against on account of it. I guess a lot of our self styled progressives have their limitations and don’t like reflections that are too close for comfort.
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krishikari
January 27, 2021
@Aman Basha My understanding of the laws and protests are different, the moneybags of the corporates do not give poorer farmers any chance of legal escapes, it would be prohibitively expensive for them to fight the contracts they will be forced to sign. The very idea that they need to “escape” is telling. Also it is not just two states, farmers in the northern states are being supported by demonstrations all over India. Delegates from other states are at the Delhi protests.
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Aman Basha
January 28, 2021
But seriously, someone ought to open a thread for the stock market, the stuff that’s going on there is straight out of the Dark Knight/Joker playbook. What a ride 2021 has been so far.
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krishikari
January 28, 2021
@madan, yes that was one of the reviews I was referring too. AV does this once in a while, I loved her review of The great Indian Kitchen but this one left me wondering if she knows what films and fiction and adaptations even are! The Slumdog complaints which I thought were put to rest are again dragged out by other reviewers too… “poverty porn for western viewers” my god, give it a rest, if you don’t want people to see what India looks like, stop treating people like they don’t matter.
What I did not really understand in the movie is the repeated shots of the same Gandhi statue and Balram looking at it as if it signified something. If I had one complaint that would be it.
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Madan
January 28, 2021
Wrote this about Gamestop-gate.
Yes, it deserves a separate thread.
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Aman Basha
January 28, 2021
I am a simple teen, I want to buy Game Stop, will try to buy Blackberry and will definitely buy Nokia. If fat cat Wall Street hedge funds go out, so what? Welcome to the Roaring Twenties.
And +1 to the separate thread, or if anyone can come up with a Reader’s Write In.
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tejas
January 28, 2021
Oh, Priyanka, why oh why! This one time we wanted you to do the accent and you totally disappointed.
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Madan
January 28, 2021
“What I did not really understand in the movie is the repeated shots of the same Gandhi statue and Balram looking at it as if it signified something.” – Yeah, whatever the director wanted to signify by it was never spelt out or even hinted at such that we might decipher.
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Aman Basha
January 28, 2021
Wall Street is FUCKED, THESE CHEATING SONS OF SLUTS AND WHORES are going to find their heads on pikes if they keep doing this.
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Chhotesaab
January 28, 2021
That is a stunning review! Thanks, Brady! Really made me look at the film differently and understand it better.
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Anu Warrier
January 29, 2021
THESE CHEATING SONS OF SLUTS AND WHORES
Immaculate conception, I suppose, Aman?
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Faroo
January 30, 2021
I couldn’t get past the “Exotic Indian tropes” and the accent and tried fwding – that didnt help either. Gave up after ~20 mins. While I didn’t really like the “masters”, I coudn’t root for the “servant” either.
Great review as usual though — almost makes me want to go back and attempt to see the entire movie!
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Aman Basha
January 30, 2021
@Anuji, turns out all the riches flashed on Forbes and Fortune magazines are a product of immaculate conception too. The Crucifixion is set, one wonders whether a resurrection is possible.
Not that I intend to mock the Carpenter from Nazreath, I have a soft spot for bearded, robe wearing Arab Jews who throw out rich people from their palaces.
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Voldemort
January 30, 2021
A few years ago I was on a reading spree of international bestsellers written by Indians, and that’s how I stumbled upon the White Tiger. My thoughts exactly on finishing it was that it would make for a really good film. And boy was it riveting. From my memory of the book I thought Pinky was a rather shallow character, unlike Pinky in the film or probably I don’t remember it well. And “Century of the brown man and yellow man, god save everyone else” – Damn.
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Voldemort
January 30, 2021
Reg the Ramu Kaka comparison – Saar neenga engayo poitinga.🙏
Great comments Madan and Krishikari!
Second, third, fourth and fifth (: P) a separate thread on Gamestop.
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krishikari
January 31, 2021
@faroo what “exotic indian tropes” are you talking about? Also the accents, that’s exactly how American born and American educated Indians sound… as BR said, or are you talking about Balram’s accent while speaking English?
@voldemort thanks 🙂 I think they changed Pinky’s character a bit for the film. I think it was a good change to give her more depth or the betrayal and paltry tip would not have hurt him so much.
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Ram
January 31, 2021
I live in the US, and watched this movie today. It was good up to a certain point but got dragging and illogical beyond that. It felt like the movie was trying to cater to western audience with every dialogue starting with “In India”. This was conveniently under the disguise of him writing to Chinese premier. This was as ridiculous as Vijay writing to PM in Tamilizian movie, incidentally another PCs movie. We can obviously see that this movie was directed by bunch of non Indians, who absolutely have no Idea about NRIs. To portray a guy who was so interested in moving back to India, as not rooted in Indian culture and getting fleeced by driver about Indian customs is just plain silly. I can go on and on about lack of logical thinking, for e.g. giving a bribe of 10 lakhs to CMs fund(Are they living in 90s), CM getting into a Rajkumars car right after winning an election when she clears knows he plotted for her to fail, paper thin escape plan at the end. We have a totally different standard when we critic a movie made by foreign directors. Btw Love your reviews and been following film companion for quite sometime.
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