Danny Boyle’s latest film was a smash hit at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, where it took home the coveted Audience Award. So why did it take Fox Searchlight almost two months to put out a trailer for the movie, which opens next week? What’s more, why does the trailer they eventually came up with look so boilerplate? This isn’t to say that the trailer isn’t at least pretty good- it gets the premise across, establishes the setting, and allows the hero (played by Dev Patel) to elaborate on what really drives him. In other words, everything is accounted for except for a feeling about what makes the movie really special. Part of me wants to think that a movie that takes home the top audience prize at a festival with more than 300 movies should be something more than a standard-issue crowdpleaser. But then, that part of me has forgotten last year’s festival, in which any number of magnificent films got bested by the disappointing (especially considering its director) Eastern Promises. Of course, who knows? This trailer might actually not do justice to the movie. But if Fox Searchlight wants Slumdog Millionaire to make the same impression with mainstream audiences that it did with festival-goers, it should have come up with something better than this.
