Slumdog Millionaire makes many different promises at first glance. Its arguably pejorative title provokes a gut-check but also pledges to deliver a derivative of the “rags to riches” story that has been told so many times and across so many different media.

In any case, Slumdog Millionaire is 2009’s Hollywood plaything, media headliner, and award-winning juggernaut. The film’s success isn’t entirely inexplicable, either. Its self-described “feel-good” plot, couched in traditional Hollywood and Bollywood production formulas, is an established and appealing trope to filmgoers.

That doesn’t make it unproblematic, though. Director Danny Boyle’s strategy to coat the film’s cheerless subject matter with copious optimism might draw crowds, but it trivializes the sobering reality of India’s poverty. Moreover, the timeworn Horatio Alger narrative that underlies the film bespeaks a not-so-subtle manifestation of the “American Dream”—this time with an ethnic flair, neatly packaged in Anthony Dod Mantle’s colorful and evocative cinematography.

Whether Boyle’s overall effort is deserving of its formidable reception is immaterial to the question of whether his film is the correct approach to issues of poverty that still run rampant in India today, and indeed inhibit the country as an emerging global power.

According to the World Bank, nearly a third of the world’s poor live somewhere in South Asia. In India, poor people amount to almost 42% of the total population—for those counting, that’s almost half a billion.

Any visit to one of South Asia’s rapidly growing metropolises is also an intimate encounter with the ubiquitous beggars that roam the streets. Scenes in which Jamal, Salim, and Latika are groomed as child beggars by the nefarious Maman resonate with my own encounters with the poor and desperate children panhandling on the streets of Delhi. So Slumdog Millionaire’s portrayal of India’s poor isn’t exactly inaccurate—it’s just impertinent.

And there is, indeed, room for hope: just forty years ago, the number of India’s poor accounted for almost two-thirds of its total population. But the kind of hope Slumdog promotes isn’t one of systematic and universal poverty eradication—rather, Boyle implies that the onus of liberation lies solely on the shoulders of the impoverished, who, with a little bit of initiative and elbow grease, can rise above the hapless masses.

Central to Jamal’s improbable journey on a game show “hot-seat” is the notion that his success is the outcome of his own ambitions and dreams. Jamal’s success is purely his own, enabled by the private enterprise of a game show, not a government handout.

Thus, Slumdog’s message is not terribly different from that of Oprah, who uses the story of her own life to demonstrate the fruits of her hard work and big dreams. There is a good bit of truth to the maxim, of course: hard work may not always pay off, but it certainly helps. The problem with Boyle’s film, however, is that its scenes of poverty are neatly packaged into a traditional happy-ending love story, eminently consumable by American sensibilities. The Indian context is distinctive, but ultimately expendable—social realities are irrelevant if the common solution is diligence and perseverance. Slumdog Millionaire, then, offers us little more than some pretty pictures and a warm and fuzzy feeling. Socially, it is merely an outsider’s perspective that offers nothing constructive to the realities of the poverty problem in South Asia.

Such a perspective is undoubtedly dangerous, as it arguably undermines efforts to counter global poverty. As Western filmgoers, we, for the most part, lead luxurious lives across the street from the hardships the millions of real Jamal’s and Latika’s confront every day. A “feel-good” film like Slumdog Millionaire might be good for the heart and easy on the soul, but it also elides any personal responsibility.

Slumdog conforms to a Hollywood paradigm of films that emphasize spectacle and downplay substance—all in the name of the box-office. India is Boyle’s spectacle, and it is a watered-downed caricature that bears little resemblance to the hard-hitting grit that characterizes his other work, such as the exceedingly grim Trainspotting. India, for Boyle, is nothing more than a colorful canvas upon which Jamal and Latika’s stirring and forbidden love takes place, with all the hopeless romanticism and melodrama that audiences adore.                   

Perhaps what is most striking about Slumdog Millionaire is the string of controversies that have beset its cast and crew since its worldwide release and impressive reception. Almost all of the film’s youngest actors hail from real slums, and after they were done promoting the film, they returned to their previous lives in makeshift homes in one of Mumbai’s poorer suburbs. The media quickly and justifiably raised pointed questions about their salaries and about their futures.

The proper compensation of such child actors is, of course, a controversial topic. There isn’t a correct approach to the problem. But this dilemma does reveal something about the “rags to rupees” narrative that the film unabashedly promotes. With the spotlight gone and their time in the Hollywood limelight now a distant past, these young actors return to a way of life that could not be more different from those of the film’s two biggest stars, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. Hard work and dreaming big might pay off for Jamal Malik, but for Rubiana Ali and all of the other kids who captured the hearts of the world on the screen and on the red carpet—well, their lives return to the slums where it all began. The only question is where it will end.