Movie review: The White Tiger

Entertainment Editor

Jan 27, 2021 06:00 am

Currently showing on Netflix, this grim film adaptation of Aravind Adiga's bestselling, Man Booker Prize-winning 2008 novel of the same name may end with the anti-hero finally finding the light at the end of his tunnel, but the permeating "darkness" that keeps getting brought up is something one cannot easily forget or shake off.

Cunning and ambitious Balram (Adarsh Gourav) narrates his darkly humorous rise from poor villager and obedient servant to successful entrepreneur and his own master in modern India.

Things pick up when he becomes the driver for a wealthy family (Rajkummar Rao and Priyanka Chopra), but his eyes are opened wide after a night of betrayal.

Turning in his first lead performance that ranges from naive to bitter to ferocious, Gourav empowers The White Tiger, which also refers to Balram, who sees himself as a caged animal seeking to escape the rooster coop that is India's caste system.

It is hard to watch or even condone his means to an end.

But amid the black hole of poverty, corruption and inequality, getting away with murder seems like the only way out. -