The White Tiger review: A satirical commentary

The White Tiger

Netflix

Director:

Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra Jonas

Rating: 4/5

We’ve all seen many rags-to-riches stories but ‘White Tiger’, based on Aravind Adiga’s book by the same name, is something else.

The movie will leave you wondering about so many things that you want to change about India but just can’t.

It starts off with a Bengaluru-based businessman defining ‘the Indian entrepreneur’ as an interesting mix of ‘straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, all at the same time’, in a letter to Wen Jiabao, premier of China, who plans to visit India and interact with entrepreneurs.

Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav), a boy from a village, in his attempt to escape working in the village, heads to the city to become a driver for Ashok Sharma (Rajkummar Rao) and wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra Jonas).

Balram refers to the tale of a rooster coop, and how the roosters who are caught, see and hear other roosters being killed around them, know their fate, yet can’t escape it. The plot revolves around how Balram escapes the ‘rooster coop’.

Statements like ‘the desire to be a servant had been bred into me’, leave one rooting for Balram, to escape it all and fly away.

Adarsh Gourav leaves you wondering if anyone else could have played Balram better, as one cannot separate the actor from the character here.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is convincing in her role as an India-born American-raised woman, but Rajkummar Rao isn’t effectively able to pull off a US-educated person. However, his portrayal doesn’t affect the plot much.

The film is a textured satirical commentary on caste issues in modern India and shows many rotten things about our political and law and order system, and also touches on the gap between the rich and poor.

A scene in the film shows Balram (telling himself) ‘I’m just one who has woken up while the rest of you are still sleeping’. It, like many other lines in the film, convinces one that the screenplay has been effectively delivered by director Ramin Bahrani, who looks like he’s in full command of the story.

Music by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans work well for the script as it sets in that racy and real tone to the story. Cinematography by Paolo Carnera is also worth a mention.