Lion
The search begins
Lion (2016)
Production
Budget
$12 000 000
Revenue
$140 312 928
Director
Scenario
Luke Davies
Composer
Dustin O'Halloran
Producer
Emile Sherman
Actors
Dev Patel
Saroo Brierley
Rooney Mara
Lucy
David Wenham
John Brierley
Nicole Kidman
Sue Brierley
Sunny Pawar
Young Saroo
Abhishek Bharate
Guddu
Priyanka Bose
Kamla Munshi
Divian Ladwa
Mantosh Brierley
Short description
Lion tells the true story of Saroo, a five-year-old boy in India who climbs onto a train and ends up stranded far from his home and family. Alone in Calcutta, he survives on the streets before being placed in an orphanage and adopted by an Australian couple, John and Sue Brierley, who raise him in Tasmania. As an adult, Saroo keeps his past buried, unwilling to hurt the parents who took him in, but fragments of childhood memory push him to search for the village and family he lost, using satellite mapping to trace a place he can barely recall. The film is based on Saroo Brierley's memoir.
Garth Davis directed this 2016 drama, his first feature, followed by Mary Magdalene and Foe. Luke Davies wrote the screenplay, and Dev Patel plays the adult Saroo, with Nicole Kidman and David Wenham as his adoptive parents, Rooney Mara as Lucy, and Abhishek Bharate and Divian Ladwa among the supporting cast. Around 37 performers are credited, alongside 70 crew members.
Made for about 12 million dollars, Lion took roughly 140 million worldwide, a strong return. It holds an 8 out of 10 on IMDb from some 266,000 votes and an 8 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller base of about 7,000. The critics' rating stands at 7.3 out of 10 across 268 reviews, so audiences rate it somewhat higher than critics do.
What's left behind the scenes
- Dev Patel felt some discomfort at the thought of having to ride the waves as the plot required. Several species of sharks inhabit the coast of Tasmania, including those that pose a danger to humans (such as the great white and bull shark).
- In the final scenes of the film, when Sarah returns home, the residents of the village appeared as extras.
- Dev Patel's audition lasted six hours. Producers were concerned that the British actor of Indian descent was too obvious a choice for the lead role. It was the actor’s origin that led to his rejection for a role in Ang Lee’s adventure drama "Life of Pi" (2012) and for roles in some other films.
- Saroo Brierley's story was the subject of a special edition of the public affairs show 60 Minutes (which has been airing on CBS since 1968), as well as a Google Earth feature advertisement.
- The first scene filmed with Dev Patel turned out to be the last scene of the film.
- 4000 boys auditioned for the role of young Saroo.
- Former US President Bill Clinton unexpectedly appeared at the film's premiere in America. This was one of his first public appearances after his wife Hillary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 presidential race.
- Rooney Mara was planning to take a break from her career and rest from filming, but Garth Davis convinced the actress to star in his film.
- This was Nicole Kidman’s first role in her acting career where she played the mother of an adopted child. The actress is raising two adopted children – Isabella Jane and Connor Anthony.
- Some episodes were filmed in Hobart, the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania, a location not often visited by film crews. The film's crew consisted of over 300 people and was financed from various sources in different countries. Thus, "Lion" became the largest film project to be shot in Australia.
- Some footage from the upcoming film was first shown to the public during the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival. A screening for the press of the first edited version of the film (which was later modified) was organized as part of "Sundance" – the national American festival of independent cinema.
- During rehearsals, Garth Davis did everything he could to help Dev Patel and Rooney Mara get to know each other better. Once, he even asked the actors to draw each other and talk about how they saw each other.
- Sunny Pawar's cinematic debut. The boy didn't speak English at all when filming began, but immediately befriended Nicole Kidman, who played his mother. This happened during the filming of a cricket game.
- Priyanka Bose was cast as Kamla due to director Garth Davis’s belief that she had the “same energy” as Nicole Kidman. Bose was very flattered by the comparison with the famous actress.
- Director Garth Davis asked Dev Patel to play some scenes as if he were an animal.
- To maintain Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar’s cultural connection to India during filming in Australia, director Garth Davis ordered that sounds of nature recorded on location in India be played for them and that they be fed Indian cuisine.
- Over 80,000 children go missing in India every year. The number of homeless children in the country exceeds 11 million. Companies involved in the project and The Charity Network created a special fund to help homeless children.
- Garth Davis's directorial debut in live-action film.
- According to the plot, Saroo uses the Google Earth program to search for his birth family. Google provided invaluable assistance in the making of the film.
- While working on the image of Saroo, actor Dev Patel spent several hours a day in the gym. He grew a beard, learned to speak with an Australian accent, traveled to India to a shelter where his character lived as a child, and even retraced the route Saroo once took. The actor spent 8 months preparing for the role.
- Dev Patel called the script for the film "Lion" the best he had ever read.
- After the end credits, footage of Sue Brierley's first meeting with Sarah's birth mother is shown. Director Garth Davis was present at the meeting, as he was already working on a special edition of the socio-political show 60 Minutes at the time.
- The character of Rooney Mara was not based on a single prototype, but is rather a composite image.
- Sue Brierley herself chose actress Nicole Kidman to portray her on screen. Having met in Sydney, Brierley and Kidman discussed the role and discovered during the conversation that they had a lot in common.
- In May 2014, even before the casting and approval of actors, The Weinstein Company had already concluded a distribution deal worth $12 million.
- Filming took place in the same locations where Claire McCarthy shot the drama "Waiting City" (2009).
- The film tells Saroo's story linearly, without flashbacks, and the first half features relatively little dialogue. Garth Davis drew inspiration from the animated film "WALL-E" (Andrew Stanton, 2008).
- 8-year-old Sunny Pawar did not receive an American visa, which automatically excluded him from attending the film's premiere in the US. Producers made a request to the Department of the Interior, after which the young actor and his father were eventually issued visas.
- The film is based on the memoirs of Saroo Brierley, titled "A Long Way Home." Initially, the film was intended to have the same name as the source book.
- The Briarly family received an invitation to the set and attended the filming of some episodes in Tasmania.
- Filming of the film was announced in April 2013, with the start of actual filming planned for August 2014. Due to delays, filming only began in January 2015. Initially, all episodes were filmed in India. Some scenes in Australia with actors Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, and Nicole Kidman were filmed in April 2015.
- To film one episode, the Howrah Bridge had to be closed. This bridge connects Howrah and Kolkata, and traffic on it never ceases, day or night. The bridge was closed to traffic at the request of the "Lion" film crew for the first time since its completion in 1942.
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