The Crow's Egg

This year’s crowd-pleasing opener, The Crow’s Egg, is just that – enjoyable enough, but tough to rally any real long-term support for.

An inconsistently detailed film – shot in a crowded Chennai slum, but populated with characters written mostly in shorthand – The Crow’s Egg succeeds in getting another story about the injustice of the Indian class divide onto screens, but fails in greatly over-simplifying that story with a style borrowed from Slumdog Millionaire.   

Over-reliant on heady pop-aesthetic to sell its emotional moments, the film over-indulges in slow motion and music, smothering whatever real pathos it accumulates in the scenes unencumbered by those devices. And pathos it indeed has – its two child stars are sweet and believable, and the beating heart of the film.