At some point in the past year or so, I have become what we in Scotland would refer to as a “Big Jessie”, and I am almost certain that this is a natural psychological side effect of fatherhood. You often hear about new parents softening as their children grow, but I seem to have avoided such a clichéd personality change in all facets of life except one: I now have little threshold to endure painful suffering in movies, especially when it comes to children. I loved Slumdog Millionaire, either in spite of or because I spent the majority of the first hour with tears in my eyes, as our prepubescent hero seems to encounter violence and abuse at regular, relentless fifteen-minute intervals. Read more »
