***** (MA15+)Director: Danny Boyle.Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan.YES, it's as good as the Academy would have you believe (and the BAFTA and Golden Globe people for that matter) but anyone expecting a happy-go-lucky Bollywood ride will be sadly disappointed.Slumdog Millionaire, despite its uplifting central theme of love and destiny, is gritty, harsh and unflinching in its look at life in the slums of Mumbai.But as with real life, you have to experience the lows to appreciate the highs, and the rises and falls of Jamal Malik make this riveting and unmissable viewing.The film opens with Jamal one question away from the top prize on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.Suspecting a rat, the authorities rough him up to find out if he's cheating before he returns the following night for a crack at the 20 million rupees ($A615,558).What follows is Jamal's life story, told in flashback, as he rises from the slums and survives life on the streets, with thoughts of his beloved Latika never far from his mind.It's a touching tale told with boundless energy, moments of charming humour and an almost startling directness.Characters never pass comment on the surprising brutality or beauty, things just are that way for them. Danny Boyle's enthusiastic direction is aided by some dazzling cinematography and disarming performances from the mostly young cast, who are uniformly fantastic.You'd have to be stone-hearted not to be moved by Jamal's Cinderella-esque story which, in less talented hands than Boyle's, could have been sappy, implausible and fake.Instead, Slumdog Millionaire bursts with reality, energy, passion, honesty and heart.