Lion Movie Analysis

I chose to view the movie Lion, a movie based on the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley. This movie is about a five-year-old boy, Saroo, living in a poor, rural area in India. Saroo convinces his older brother Guddu, to let him tag along and find work in a nearby city. Saroo ends up trapped and alone in a decommissioned passenger train that takes him to Calcutta, over 1,000 miles away from his home.
Saroo spends three weeks as a street child, struggling to survive and facing many challenges along the way. Saroo is too young to identify who he is or his home to the authorities, so he is sent to an orphanage. He is soon selected to be adopted by a family from Australia, the Brierley’s. The Brierley’s raise Saroo in a warm, prosperous home. Saroo’s life is much different than it would have been if he lived in India. Twenty-five years pass by, and Saroo is haunted by the memories of his past life. He searches to try and find his hometown and family.
Saroo and his older brother Guddu are stealing coal from a moving train. After this dangerous act, they went to the market to trade the coal they stole. In return for the coal, they got two packets of milk. The siblings go home with their milk and share it with their family, but don’t tell their mom how they got it. From here, we can see the family’s struggle to put food on the table and their life in poverty. We also find out Saroo’s mother is a laborer who could not read or write. Saroo, who is still a child himself, often had to watch his younger sister while his mom and older brother were at work. We are never introduced to Saroo’s father, and it seems that Saroo’s mother cares for the entire family