Film Review: "The White Tiger" (2021).

"Eat or get eaten up" in The White Tiger. This Indian drama film adapted and directed by Ramin Bahrani and based on the novel of the same name by Arvind Adiga. Balram Halwai narrates his epic and darkly humorous rise from poor villager to successful entrepreneur in modern India. Cunning and ambitious, our young hero jockeys his way into becoming a driver for Ashok and Pinky, who have just returned from America. Society has trained Balram to be one thing - a servant - so he makes himself indispensable to his rich masters. But after a night of betrayal, he realizes the corrupt lengths they will go to trap him and save themselves. On the verge of losing everything, Balram rebels against a rigged and unequal system to rise up and become a new kind of master.

Before the novel's publication in 2008, producer Mukul Deora bought the film rights to Adiga's novel and chose his college-friend Bahrani to pen and direct the adaptation. Eventually Bahrani, read the rough drafts of the novel years before it was published. Deora then sold the distribution rights to Netflix. While Bahrani added and deleted a few sequences and adapted the character for the screen, the story stays largely faithful to the novel. Initially, he considered updating the story, set in 2005, to a more recent setting, before abandoning the idea, as it is a period film. When Priyanka Chopra scrolled through Twitter, she saw a headline that a film adaptation of the novel was in the works. She called her agent about the film to offer her involvement. Thus, on top of being cast, Chopra would serve as one of the executive producers. Bahrani turned down some established stars for the part of Balram. Before filming, Bahrani spent months in India, riding local buses, visiting the places Adiga had written about, and meeting scores of people, before eventually meeting Adarsh Gourav. Gourav prepared for his role by living anonymously in a remote village in Jharkhand and working for twelve hours a day, washing plates. By October 2019, Rajkummar Rao, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vijay Maurya and Kamlesh Gill rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in mid December. Filming took place throughout Delhi. The cast began a script reading session before the start of filming. While shooting, Priyanka posted her picture on Instagram, with a caption stating that "it is too hard to shoot here", citing the climatic conditions and air pollution prevailing in the city.

The film stars Gourav, Chopra Jonas, Rao, Manjrekar, Maurya and Gill. The film features award-worthy performances, an original premise that speaks so much truth, but contains a climax that is hard to like, leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth.

As comes as no surprise that Bahrani breaks down the door of our collective moral compass with this cat and mouse thriller of corruption versus conscience. Bahrani's most effective film to date, the film features a particularly vibrant cast engaged in a modern perversion of Indian greed.

Simon says The White Tiger receives:

Also, see my review for Fahrenheit 451 (2018).