Lion
dir. Garth Davis · 2016
The search for identity and belonging is a fundamental part of the human experience, often intertwined with love and the longing for connection across different worlds.
"Lion" is a heart-wrenching journey of lost and found, blending the chaos of childhood survival in India with the tender embrace of family in Australia. A visually stunning odyssey that explores the depths of memory and the unbreakable ties of love, it captures the essence of searching for one's roots and the meaning of home.
A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.
Full synopsisspoilers
In 1986, Saroo was a five-year-old child in India of a poor but happy rural family. On a trip with his brother, Saroo soon finds himself alone and trapped in a moving decommissioned passenger train that takes him to Calcutta, 1000 miles away from home. Now totally lost in an alien urban environment and too young to identify either himself or his home to the authorities, Saroo struggles to survive as a street child until he is sent to an orphanage. Soon, Saroo is selected to be adopted by the Brierley family in Tasmania, where he grows up in a loving, prosperous home.
However, for all his material good fortune, Saroo finds himself plagued by his memories of his lost family in his adulthood and tries to search for them even as his guilt drives him to hide this quest from his adoptive parents and his girlfriend. Only when he has an epiphany does he realize not only the answers he needs, but also the steadfast love that he has always had with all his loved ones in both worlds.
