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Its only just about to see audiences in most of the world but already Danny Boyle's latest offering Slumdog Millionaire is being touted as the best movie of the year (leaning back into 2008 of course). From looking at the trailers for the movie and how perfectly pictured each frame is, you could be persuaded to believe that the movie is great family viewing, but Boyle's world is as dark and nightmarish as it is beautiful.

Told in flashbacks the movie opens in not the best of ways, finding its star Dev Patel (best known for the TV show Skins) who plays Jamal Malik, under interrogation by the Indian police, the reason? Jamal is just one question away from winning the jackpot on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The problem that the games host and the police have is how exactly a boy from the slums of Mumbai could know all the answers to these questions. This is where the flashbacks come into play, for each answer Jamal has given, you are sent back in time to Jamal's childhood, and the situations he finds himself in that led to him knowing the answers to the questions.

Slumdog Millionaire is a really emotional journey, but despite its feel good factors its incredibly dark. In one of the earliest of the movies scenes brothers Jamal and Salim look on in horror as their mother and hundreds of others are massacred while doing their washing. Sadly for the brothers and the newly acquired Latika (a girl orphaned in the same tragedy) this is just the first of a string of nightmare scenarios. As the movie progresses you shown children being deliberately blinded in order to earn more money begging, others sold into the sex industry, and the then power of India's gangs.

In days gone by you are reminded of the terrible poverty in other countries, India being a prime example of this. But in recent years the country has been forgotten when it comes to more western cinema. With the world for many years enjoying the good life with a brisk boom in spending, you think that possibly countries like India have moved on. Boyle is quick to dispel any of these myths showing you that while the rich get richer, the poor are every bit as poor as they were years ago when the world's attention turned to the poverty within the country. You are shown the two different sides, and the terrible indifference shown towards the poorer members of the public from those more "well to do". This is illustrated in the most part by Who Wants To Be A Millionaires host Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor),

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