Slumdog Millionaire and Somerstown

Slumdog Millionaire and Somerstown

Slumdog Millionaire
Directed by Danny Boyle Written by Simon Beaufoy
Starring
Dev Patel
Freida Pinto
Madhur Mittal
Anil Kapoor
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar
Tanay Chheda
Rubina Ali
Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail
Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala

Country United Kingdom
Language – English - Hindi
Budget $15.1 million Gross revenue $360,032,690

Somerstown
Directed by Shane Meadows
Written by Paul Fraser
Starring Thomas Turgoose
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Low Budget

The two films have both been classed as British, but for different reasons. Somerstown is much more ‘obviously” and ‘out there/in your face’ British than Slumdog Millionaire. This is mainly because of the setting of the film and the actors nearly all being British, it being set in London on a low budget. I quote the telegraphg review “At barely 70 minutes, it's the length of a B-movie or the low-budget, low-quality "quota quickies" churned out during the 1930s”. It shows all the elements of a classic British film such as the grittyness. It is also done a very “classic” British thing, where it is a low budgeted film that has done so well partly because of it’s low Budget, much like ‘This is England’. Slumdog Millionaire has created some controversy over if it is actually British or not. It wasnt filmed in Britian and it isn’t about British society. However it still has lots of elements of Britishness in it, although it wasnt filmed in Britian, it was filmed in another ‘gritty’ atmosphere, it still remains in British morals, it was funded by British institutions like channel 4, it has British actors and Directors and it is even based around a indian version of a British show (who wants to be a millionaire). I think that Somerstown would be classed as a lot more British than Slumdog Millionaire, but they both can be highly classed as British films. Just Slumdog Millionaire being a less classic conventional British film like Somerstown is.