One question away from twenty million rupees, a teenager from the Mumbai slums is hauled off the set of India's biggest game show and interrogated as a cheat. How could a penniless orphan know so much? Danny Boyle answers in flashback, tracing Jamal Malik's life across the crowded, kinetic city: the brother he grows up beside, the girl he keeps losing, and the hard streets that taught him every answer. Adapted from Vikas Swarup's novel, the film moves with restless energy and a pulsing score, a rags-to-riches story told with grit rather than gloss.