Based on Saroo Brierley’s memoir A Long Way Home.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: The Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel, 24, has bagged the coveted role of the real life story of an Indian street kid, who is adopted by an affluent Australian family, but goes looking for his biological parents when he grows up.
The film, titled ‘Lion’, is being directed by Garth Davis, who recently co-directed with Jane Campion the mystery drama mini-series Top of the Lake, and is being produced by The Weinstein Company. Weinstein paid reportedly $12 million for the rights to the film,
Lion will also star Nicole Kidman in a lead role, as the mother of Patel. The film is based on the incredible memoir by Saroo Brierley, titled A Long Way Home. The script of the film is by Luke Davies, who penned the John Cusack thriller Reclaim.
According to Deadline, Lion has Oscar potential, and is already being compared to prior films like Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi, for its narrative power and scope for actors to display versatility.
The protagonist of the film is Saroo Brierly, being played by Patel, who was separated from his family in India at age five. The family lived in desperate poverty after the father deserted them, and Brierly and his older brother one day went to a railway station to scavenge for food and spare change. Saroo wound up separated from his brother, and having no idea where it was going, boarded a train that took him far from his home. Hopelessly lost, he wound up on the streets of Calcutta. After a harrowing survival ordeal, he eventually was rescued, and was adopted and grew up with an affluent family in Australia. He never forgot his origins, though. As an adult, he decided to reunite with his mother. Using scraps of memory and Google Maps, he was able to figure out where home was, and 26 years later was finally reunited with a birth mother who never stopped hoping.
Patel, who will also be seen in the films The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Child 44, both scheduled for release next year, has been busy this year, with several projects, including the HBO series ‘The Newsroom’.
Lion is due to hit theaters March 27, 2015.
1 Comment
Love Dev! So happy for his upcoming projects.