Slumdog Coincidentalist
A reader writes in requesting a reexamination of my post “The Perils of Coincidence” in light of an acclaimed movie which is already a screenwriting award contender:
This weekend, I saw Slumdog Millionaire, a story that is succinctly described by the equation: “I knew the answer to this obscure question because this farfetched event happened to me once. And repeat.”
Is coincidence good now?
– Andre Gayle
London
I would argue that Jamal’s knowing the right answers falls into my category of a Premise Coincidence, much the same way that in Die Hard, John McClane just happens to be in the building when the villains attack, or in the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker just happens to get bitten by the radioactive spider.
In each of these cases, the coincidence is the reason why the story is happening.
But I can see why Andre is bristling. In my original post, I single out luck and chance as being particularly flimsy pegs upon which to hang a story, and there are a couple of answers in Slumdog that seem arbitrary or tangential (the cricketeer comes to mind).1 However, the overall flashback structure sets a rule and sticks by it: every time we jump back, we’ll see how he got the answer.
I addressed this in my original post, calling it correlation:
Rather than ask an audience to swallow a bunch of little implausibilities, try bundling them together.
In Heroes, imagine if each character had a completely unique origin story: Claire got her powers from a shaman; Sylar is an alien; Peter has a magic ring. You’d get frustrated pretty quickly, because a lot of screen time would go towards explaining why and how. Instead, the creators wisely decided the characters all had some mysterious gene mutation activated by an environmental change. The audience is willing to make that one big leap, because they’re not asked to make similar leaps each time a new character is introduced.
In fact, the biggest coincidence in Slumdog would have to be that the answers Jamal needs just happen to be found chronologically in his life story. That’s something you buy or you don’t. It didn’t bother me.
- A reader points out that the cricket question is actually an answer that’s handled mostly in the present-day story. ↩
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January 19th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I’d contend that a coincidence occurs in the chain of the story and propels the story forward. If that’s the definition then I’d agree that more than one will stretch an audience’s credulity. In this case though I think the ‘Millionaire’ quiz show is simply a recurring link device, no different than others seen in many different guises (the flashback to the field hospital in Jacob’s Ladder?) The story of Jamal’s life contains no coincidences – it’s simply a narrative. The single device that makes us scratch our heads a little is that he is on the show. But once we buy that we should accept the structure. I saw it Friday in the UK and was totally comfortable with it.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Great question and answer!!
Personally, that structure in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE bothered me a little bit. It seemed just a bit too tidy. However, I also thought it said something about how the experiences of certain people end up preparing them for something unexpected.
I guess it just depends on your outlook.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I’d argue it works because the film sets the right tone. We cringe at coincidence in film when it’s a cop-out. Slumdog Millionaire frames the coincidence as the thesis of the film.
(I’m sorry. I hate that I used the word “thesis.” It’s the best words I could come up with.)
January 19th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Slumdog also has that slight tendency toward Bollywood, complete with the dance sequence at the end. Asian films are always more open to coincidence, luck and random supernatural intervention.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I think it’s a matter of suspension of disbelief (to vomit film school word). If coincidence is woven into the structure of the movie we let it go, but if it looks like coincidence was used to fix story problems we tend to frown upon it.
January 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
You’re forgetting that destiny factors into the movie. There are greater forces at work. That’s why the questions pertain to his life. Also, remember, Jamal didn’t know the answer to the cricket question. He just knew the host was trying to sabotage him.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
The screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy, has actually addressed this “flaw in the structure” (his words). Google/iTunes for the Creative Screenwriting mag podcast. (And no, this isn’t a plug; I just happened to have listened to it recently.) He talks at length about finding the structure while adapting the book.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I thought SLUMDOG was the best film of the year and it seems to be the favorite for the Best Picture Oscar.
As noted above, the screenplay is by Simon Beaufoy, who also wrote THE FULL MONTY, which I also loved.
Glad you liked SLUMDOG more than MONTY, John. I do remember your nasty slam of the latter.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I feel hard pressed to even call it coincidence. This is a movie about destiny. What i learned after coming out of Slumdog Millionaire was that all of these terrible things that happen to us in life are building toward something. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is a cinematic metaphor to show that even when we are tested, those experiences that have shaped our lives are valuable as long as we are willing to learn from them. The true beauty of the film is the strange blend of terrible realism with this almost supernatural idea of destiny. i think the term ‘magical realism’ gets a bit too much airplay, but maybe it applies.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:35 am
All the above seems to be assuming the story is essentially realist. I haven’t seen the movie yet but it sounds very much like its whole schtick is to frame what is clearly a fable or fairytale in a fairly gritty context. If you’re dealing with the logic of fairytale it makes perfect sense, no?
January 20th, 2009 at 5:25 am
I guess the normal rule with coincidence is: you can use it to get a character into trouble, but not out of it. The term Premise Coincidence is a rather neat way of describing the kind of coincidence that works. Whereas the lame ‘the problem just went away’ kind of coincidence (see end of WAR OF THE WORLDS) is the kind that irritates an audience.
I was loosely involved in the development of the Slumdog script, and remember debates on this front. There are two coincidences in the film, the first is a premise coincidence: we’re asked to believe upfront that something extraordinary has happened (a slum kid has got to the end of the show). I think we buy that without any difficulty, just as we buy Peter Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider – extraordinary stuff happens, after all. The second coincidence is (avoiding a major spoiler) wrapped up in his final answer. It was a point of debate in the development process whether the way that plays out undermines the logic and tone of what has gone before, and I wasn’t sure until I watched it – but in fact it works brilliantly, and is very much in keeping with the fairytale tone of the movie.
Toby
January 20th, 2009 at 5:57 am
I think myself and many other people ARE frustrated with the Heroes writing.
January 20th, 2009 at 7:56 am
How about the fact that the questions he is asked, and the order the events that enable him to answer them, are the same?
I for one, didnt even notice this. Nor did i mind the co-incidental nature of the story, because the tone, and the world of the story kept it in check.
I did however think the movie descended into cliche, felt fake (nothing to do with the co-incidences), and actually became fairly mechanical towards the end.
PS – In England we call them cricketers, but i think i’m going to start calling them ‘cricketeers’. Sounds like musketeers.
January 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am
It’s made clear that the coincidences that occur are destiny and because of this, as Max pointed out above, Slumdog Millionaire would best be described as a fairy tale.
I agree with John that the only real stretch is accepting that the answers to the game show questions are found chronologically throughout Jamal’s life. At the time it didn’t bother me and now thinking back I can see that from a screen writing perspective it would be too confusing to do it any other way.
January 20th, 2009 at 8:44 am
“However, I also thought it said something about how the experiences of certain people end up preparing them for something unexpected.”
I agree with Sammyray on that. Which is what I liked about the movie, even though it’s (obviously) contrived.
And because it WASN’T as contrived, I thought the BEST answer Jamal gave (SPOILER ALERT) was the one that went against the answer the host slipped to him. Because Jamal was using his life experience (as a slumdog, as someone who cheated others, as a street-smart guy) to recognize the trick.
And I thought the worst answer was the last, the complete guess. Although obviously luck does play big in some people’s lives…
January 20th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Destiny, destiny, destiny. It’s spelled out right there on the screen.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:10 am
If you watched it and thought that the only questions which Jamal would have been able to answer were the ones he was actually asked then, yes, you have to resort to destiny/fantasy etc to explain away the coincidence — not that that’s necessarily a problem.
But there were presumably all sorts of things that happened in Jamal’s life that would have equipped him to answer other questions had they been asked – I took it to show what a surprisingly rich and varied life someone from the slums might actually enjoy versus our expectations of such a life.
If there were a problem with the structure I would say it was that it meant that we know what happens at the end right from the outset and so was lacking in suspense (spoiler alert: Ok, there was some misdirection late in the film but basically for 90% of the film we think he wins Who Wants to be a Millionaire, for a few moments we’re not sure, and then, sure enough, he does). I don’t know that I would change the structure but it did come at the expense of suspense.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I agree with a few posters….it’s all about destiny. Is it possible to even construct a thesis on destiny without a reliance on coincidence?
January 20th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
“In fact, the biggest coincidence in Slumdog would have to be that the answers Jamal needs just happen to be found chronologically in his life story. That’s something you buy or you don’t. It didn’t bother me.”
John, I’m with you there. That didn’t bother me one bit. Partly because without this parallel structure the film would have been a total jumble. But it’s also because it’s not as black and white as that. For instance, the last question returned to an early time in his life, and this and a few other questions (cricketer) flashed back to points in his life where events that defined his character meant that he actually failed to learn the answer (watching cricket is a leisurely pastime at best).
This is also what makes your reader’s original point moot. The film was deliberately not “Here’s how he learned the answer. Repeat.” to lead the audience to the conclusion that Jamal’s fate was indeed “written”.
But true, how dull a story that would have been. To see someone challenged by a series of questions that they know the answer to. The tension in the story was already risking collapse based on the fact that we know from the start that he hadn’t answered a single question wrong. It’s a testament to Boyle and his cast then that we were kept on the edge of our seats each time.
Perhaps also worth noting is the idea that as the stakes are raised, the questions get harder. Following the format of most quiz shows, the first answers are ones which any child might know. And as the questions evolve into more obscure, or more grown-up territory, (the inventor of the revolver for example) it is natural that they would have been learned later in life. Perhaps not as late in Jamal’s life as they might have been in a more conventional childhood.
Any way you slice it this is all a very interesting exercise in analysis.
January 20th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Yeah, I think the A.B.C.D. It is written thing tidied up the problem of coincidence. Because it’s about destiny, as everyone has already said, we expect there to be coincidence since this is what happens in real life when a person’s life seems destined. So, actually, we don’t have to suspend our disbelief at all – or at least not anymore than we have to suspend it to wrap our minds around Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama becoming President, both of which would have been extremely unlikely had it not “been written.” Slumdog’s logic is strange but familiar, and so it works.
January 20th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
To me, the film seems to be a modern-day fairytale founded on the idea of destiny. The movie opens with a multiple choice question to the effect of “How did Jamal know all of the answers to the questions” (or something more eloquent along those lines) and the last option is “It is written,” which we later learn is the correct answer. The events of Jamal’s life prepared him for this game show because it is his destiny. I suppose coincidence means the same thing, but it lacks the implication of divine presence.
January 20th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Honestly, the chronological order of the coincidences does bother me somewhat. I couldn’t shake it after watching it… It would’ve been perfect(in my mind) if the events weren’t so much in the order of the questions.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:29 am
Thanks for the response John, and to everybody else that has contirbuted. I understand the ‘destiny’ angle when looking at the structure for this story. However some of the ‘explanations’ seemed, dare I say, very very thin. For example – Jamal knew what the Hindu God carried in his right hand because once, while on the run from Hindu rioters, he bumped into a child dressed as the god carrying a Bow and Arrow in his right hand…..? Or, Jamal would know who invented the revolver because his brother once had a gun?
It just seemed to me that Jamal was too often merely placed in the ‘vicinity’ of the answer and we were supposed to believe the rest came to him by osmosis. It felt a little too artificial to me.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:40 am
I don’t know about you, but if I’m running away from a group of religious zealots who just stoned my mother to death and I happen to run into some weird/out of place child dressed as a Hindu God…I might have a very vivid picture of that God burned into my mind forever.
If you recall, Jamal had to think about the incident and then really focus before coming up with the answer.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Andre, I don’t think that what you speak of are coincidences, as much as they are explanations of how he came into such knowledgle. Like I (and John) say, the coincidences are really in the chronoligical order of his life as it relates to the questions. example; first questions were answered based on his life before his mother’s death, third(or so) question, during the loss of his mother and so it continued in that sequential order. Bothered me a great deal…
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:10 am
I saw it at the weekend (terrific, as Danny Boyle’s work is generally. Beaufoy’s script was good, but I was working in a cinema when The Full Monty took Britain by storm and I haven’t quite forgiven him – a lot of that script doesn’t hold up under examination) and, like John says, you either accept the premise of the answers and how he knows them or you don’t. I did think the blue Hindu God one was a bit of a stretch, but only because I wondered why the kid would have been dressed like that and standing there anyway.
For me, the biggest coincidence, one I don’t think other films would have gotten away with so easily, wasn’t anything to do with the questions, it was the call centre. To whit, isn’t is awfully lucky certain people are on certain networks in a very large country?
And I was amused that their final question would have been one of the piss-easy first ones over here.
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Another example that pulls off tons of apparent coincidence is the TV show LOST. I think a bunch of unlikely coincidences can work as long as it’s built into the thematic material. In the case of LOST, the show acknowledges that there are so many things unlikely to be just coincidence, and makes the audience ask whether they truly are coincidence, or something else, such as fate or manipulation by an outside conspiracy.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:40 am
There’s something else at work here, in addition to destiny, and it has to do with reexamining the title. Jamal is wealthy beyond measure, but not because he won a game show. This film examines “That Which is Worth Knowing,” and pits gritty Chaplinesque survival instincts against book-learnin’. “How could a chai walla know these answers?” Because there is value in the struggle to live, there is value in the struggle to pursue love at all costs. The life-force + the love-force = True Knowledge = what is REALLY valuable. That’s why the film is impacting so many people, even if they’re unable to articulate it.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
i wanna know that how jamal gets right answer of the last question in slumdog millionaire i.e. the name of the third musketeer.In the starting of the movie this question was asked to the audience and options was given and in the last answer is given as D:It was written. plz tell me how jamal gets the right answer and which was written and where it ws written…….i think during raining when jamal calls latika to come into the hut for stay and safe from rain…there latika writing something and may b the name of third musketeer…but i dont know the right answer..plz mail the right answer at my email arsh_7oct@yahoo.co.in
February 7th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Great post. I had mixed feelings about the Slumdog. I enjoyed the originality of the settings (as an American) and a lot of the scenes, but on a general level I felt like it was unoriginal, or at least too predictable (i.e. guy wins in the end, gets girl, etc.). But at the same time I’m not sure why I say that since I enjoy happy endings as much as the next person. I think what really bothers me is that it’s perfectly written to do the things that make people like a film, and so it feels very commercial rather than having a soul.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
wow, I cant believe the short sightedness of this web audience. The movie does not hinge on coincidence at all. Rather it hinges on destiny. Which can not be stopped despite the events or origins of the character’s lives.
It was written….. please tell me you all can get this.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:25 pm
If you will watch closely, the crew member (the ones that likes the fact that Jamal is getting the best of the show’s host) pats his right “arm.” I think he was giving the answer to Jamal. This was the irony to the entire film and I think the director/author planned it that way. The answer was Aramis and it was A. First I thought the clue was “A”, but now I think it was arm. A friend that saw the movie with me, didn’t even notice it. Did any of you notice it?
February 28th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I totally saw the “arm” pat as well. After I saw it, I was looking for an answer with “ARM” in it..and there it was, choice A: “Aramis”. Was this intentional? I cannot find anyting else on the Internet about this either.