Hoping the MPAA Doesn't Slumdog Boyle

By Steven Zeitchik

One of the nuggets to emerge from a few Toronto parties this past week is that the fest's biggest breakout, Danny Boyle's remarkably agile "Slumdog Millionaire," is in an interesting little give-and-take with the MPAA.

The arbiter of ratings standards is considering giving the pic, which contains some visceral violent images but nothing even close to raunchy, an R rating, while Searchlight and Boyle are pushing hard for the PG-13.

It's tough to see an easy resolution. This is one of those MPAA situations that can't easily be solved with a black box and some digital imaging; the violence happens in integral scenes, and, more to the point, is an integral part of understanding the characters. If you don't see what the three young protagonists in the slums of Bombay faced in their dire, if slightly too Dickensian childhoods, you don't really understand why they've grown into the people they've become. This isn't Tarantino-esque stylization -- it's everyday reality in a really poor neighborhood.

Of course the pic will probably become a smash hit even with the R. But the movie's youthful elements -- the main character is a boy in his late teens -- make a pitch to a younger audience, and the PG-13 required to do, very appealing to the studio. And the pic's social value in showing Western teens how some of their contemporaries live seems important too -- a lot more important, the MPAA might want to note, than keeping a few more violent images away from Grand Theft Auto-playing teenagers.