“Lion” is a heart-warming true story starring Dev Patel (“The Man Who Knew Infinity”, “Slumdog Millionaire”). Nothing in this picture really amazed me but it was a pleasant viewing experience.

Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is a young Indian boy, who lives a life of poverty. One day while waiting for his brother, he gets lost and finds himself in Bangladesh. Upset and scared, nobody is able to find out exactly where he’s from so he ends up being adopted by an Australian couple (Nicole Kidman “Eyes Wide Shut”, David Wenham “300”). Decades later, Saroo (Patel) decides to go in search of his real family, which proves to be just as much an emotional journey as a physical one.

We spend the first half of the movie with Saroo as a young boy. Sunny Pawar does a good job conveying the sense of being lost. Dev Patel is also good as the adult Saroo and pulls off the Australian accent rather well. At the end of the film, they play some footage of the real Saroo and I was pretty shocked to see that Dev Patel did not resemble him in the slightest. Nicole Kidman and David Wenham are okay as the adopted parents of Saroo. None of the other characters were particularly of interest.

“Lion” is a competent movie. If you want a film that shows a story of feeling lost both physically and culturally then this is probably worth checking out. The movie has received an awful lot of praise and I have to say that I think some of the hype around the movie goes too far; this is not worthy of so much attention. I recommend the movie but I do warn viewers not to expect a lot from the movie as I didn’t expected much and was pleasantly surprised.