The Hound's Bark
Healdsburg High School
The White Tiger Review
By Aniesa Vasquez
​
​
​
​
Photo Credit: netflix.com
​
Netflix, the popular streaming service and content platform has recently released the movie titled The White Tiger on January 22nd. The film was an adaptation of the novel by Aravind Adiga’s, The White Tiger book published in 2008. The film is about a man from India who leaves his home town to try and escape poverty and work for the wealthy. He ends up becoming a driver for an extremely rich family and tries to rise to the top. The main character, Balram Halwai, comes from an extremely poor family who works and struggles to be servants all their life. Balram tries to overcome and break this endless cycle by being ambitious and taking his chances at working for the wealthy.
The White Tiger does an excellent job at bringing the culture and excitement into this movie. There’s constant uses of religion and visuals of Hinduism as well as their beliefs and who they put their faith into. From the very beginning, the movie is extremely intense and has a lot of scenes that leave you on the edge of your seat. But, keep in mind the movie is rated R so there is use of explicit language as well as graphic violence.
Throughout the movie, you can see how Balram’s personality changes the more he spends time with people who are wealthy. You see how he picks up their practices, mannerisms, as well as general ideals. The more the movie goes on, the more we get to see inside of Balram’s inner thoughts and how quickly they can take a dark turn. It was interesting to see how much it takes to push a person over the edge and how quickly that rage can fuel hatred and violence. WIth this movie, you get to see how obvious the difference is between the wealthy and the poor as well as how easily money can turn you evil. As a person who isn’t really into drama/crime themed movies, I overall still really enjoyed this and would recommend watching it to those who are thinking about watching it!